Maple Leaf Foods

August 2008 brought with it more than the heat of summer, for Canadians it also brought a deadly outbreak of listeriosis. 


If you are not up on some of those deadly bacterias let me tell you a little bit about this one. It's a bacterial infection that is present in foods like milk that is not processed or in things that are processed such as deli meats. 


Reading a bit about it I found similarities to the E-Coli type infection that killed my youngest son. It also has an 80% survival rate... that is unless you become septic. Of course they didn't directly say septic when talking about Listeria. They said goes into blood stream and causes meningitis. Sepsis of course is when the bacterial infection goes into the blood stream. Essentially (based on experience) the bacterial infection spreads through all your organs causing multiple organ failure and things like meningitis and enlarged hearts. I assure you I would never wish this horribly painful death on my worst enemy. The survival rate for sepsis is a whopping 20%.


Maple Leaf foods was found to have sold contaminated food in the summer of 2008 which resulted in the following:

• 38 Confirmed cases of listeriosis across Canada (22 in Ontario, 4 in B.C., 2 in Quebec and 1 in Saskatchewan).
• 30 Suspected cases (16 in Ontario, 10 in Quebec and 4 in Alberta)
• 9 Confirmed deaths caused by the outbreak (all in Ontario)
• 11 Suspected deaths (6 in Ontario, 2 in Alberta, 1 in B.C., 1 in Sask. and 1 in Quebec)

On May 19th of this year Maple Leaf Foods is hosting a dinner for 25 influential bloggers to discuss the changes that have been made to prevent further tragedies. A question and answer time will be presented to help rebuild the confidence in this 73 year old company.

As surprising as this was to me I was invited to attend this evening. What I would like to do is represent you the reader. I would like to go and ask the questions that you want answered.  

So leave me some comment love and let me know how I may help to be your voice for this one!