Canada’s Maple Leaf Foods has confirmed that the recall of 1,100 cases of wieners initiated yesterday (24 February) is almost complete.
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The affected items are produced at the company’s Hamilton, Ontario, plant and were recalled due to a “violation of the company’s food safety protocols”, the company said in a statement.
The products include; Shopsy’s Deli Fresh All Beef Frankfurters, (Product Code 20730 and UPC 6487520730) with a best before date of 22 and 23 April, and Maple Leaf Hot Dogs Original, (Product Code 22356 and UPC 6310022356) with a best before date of 23 April.
The company, which last summer closed its Bartor Road site following listeria contamination, issued a statement in January after it emerged that tests at its Coppola Food plant had shown the presence of the listeria pathogen.
Last month, Maple Leaf reached a C$25m (US$20.4m) settlement arising from August’s listeriosis outbreak, which was linked to the deaths of at least 20 people.
Of the products involved in the current recall, Maple Leaf said around 60% never left the comapny’s distribution centres and only 13% were distributed at the store level, including two cases in northern Quebec.
The company said that due to “human error”, a quantity of wieners produced at the plant that were quarantined under “routine enhanced procedures” when testing for Listeria species and were “inadvertently” shipped to distribution centres and customers in Eastern Canada.
“We voluntarily initiated this recall even though the risk was extremely low, because our high level of food safety was not met,” said Michael McCain, president and CEO, Maple Leaf Foods.
“We acted transparently and quickly to remove product from the market place. While the potential risk was always low and would not be detected by the vast majority of others in the industry, we have made a pledge to consumers that we will deliver the highest standards of food safety and we take this pledge extremely seriously.”
No other products are understood to be affected by the recall and Maple said there have been no illnesses reported as a result of consumption of the products.
The company yesterday booked a net loss from continuing operations of C$36.9m (US$29.7m) for 2008 – against a loss of C$23.2m a year earlier.
Maple Leaf’s underlying earnings fell from C$199.1m a in 2007 to C$128.4m in 2008. However, costs linked to the recall, plus restructuring costs and interest charges pushed the bottom line into the red.
