Maple leaf foods free essay sample

Maple leaf foods is one of the leaders in the consumer packaged food industry. Their operations span across Canada, the United States, United Kingdom, Asia, and Mexico. A few brands they produce are Schneider’sâ„ ¢, and Dempster’sâ„ ¢ which are known worldwide. The company was created in 1961 and the origins can be traced back to Grantham Mills in 1863. There are three groups Maple leaf operates in, Meat Products Group, Bakery Products Group, and Agribusiness Products Group. The first two groups are self-explanatory but the Agribusiness Products Group deals with recycling animal by-products into animal feed, amino acids, supplements, and biofuel . Introduction We are going to look at how Maple leaf dealt with the Listeria outbreak in the package meat products group, how they dealt with the legal issues and how they interacted with the public perception of their company. The focus will be mainly on the nonmarket environment but we will briefly dive into Maple leaf’s market environments as well. We will write a custom essay sample on Maple leaf foods or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Fours I’s Issue The summer of 2008, reports that Listeria was found in numerous products and Maple Leaf’s products are being recalled. Not only have the products tested positive for Listeria but multiple deaths have been directly linked to Maple leafs products . This brings about two issues we need to address. The first issue is a public perception of Maple leaf and how this Listeria outbreak changed public opinion on the company. The second issue will be in the legal sector, from patrons that purchased Maple leaf meat products and became ill or passed on. Consumers are becoming hyper aware about the safety of their food and any time a company has a misstep like Maple leaf they are going to be negative consequences. Intuition To see how far spread the issue has gone we will look at the institutions that are involved from Maple leafs Listeria outbreak. The media covered the issue with their own viewpoint and brought the issue to the public. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Public Health Agency of Canada were directly involved in confirming the presence of the listerosis bacteria . Any wholesaler or grocery store will have to track down Maple leaf products and send them back. The suppliers to the Maple leaf plants would have to wait until the meat packing plants were up and running again. Direct buyers of Maple leaf products such as hospitals and nursing homes have a tough time dealing with the issue. The publics sentiment of Maple leaf and how to handle this issue also can be considered an institution. Canadas federal government was also affected with the idea of amending the food and drugs act. Interest Groups The interest groups that were involved were as follows; trial lawyers, taxpayers, citizens that were directly affected by the Listeria outbreak, consumers of Maple leaf products and other producers in Maple leafs industry. The trial, lawyers, taxpayers, citizens and consumers were directly affected by the Listeria outbreak. The other producers in Maple leaf’s industry were indirectly affected because stigma brought in by this issue. Information Over 220 products were recalled by Maple leaf and it is estimated that the recall will cost Maple leaf $20 million Hundreds of people had fallen ill from the contaminated products and 23 people had died from Listeria related illness. In January 2009 a $27 million settlement was negotiated to pay to the victims and families of those affected by the Listeria outbreak. After heavy testing of Maple leaf’s products 30, out of a possible 841 product samples tested positive for Listeria. The food and drugs act was looked considered to be amended so that sodium acetate could be added as a preservative in the production of these foods . Sodium acetate would greatly decrease the chance of Listeria from being present in ready-to-eat meats. We define this issue as a moral hazard which creates almost 100% liability by Maple leaf to rectify this problem and to compensate those involved. Since this incident ranked high in intrinsic audience interest and had intensive coverage the story made it across the nation and the world. Market Maple leaf’s market environment is pretty standard for a company that sells consumer packaged food. They sell their product on a global scale and use mass media such as TV commercials and online ads to market their product . They are a publicly traded company and their success comes from the quality of their food and their innovative distribution channels. The company is not afraid of acquiring existing establishments to grow its product lines. In 1992, Maple leaf foods buys at 40% stake in McGavin foods which was a producer of bread and rolls for major grocery chains. There seems to be growing pattern of Maple leaf wanting to expand its company. They proposed building the 385,000 ft.? bakery and 402,000 ft.? meat processing plant in Hamilton Ontario. It is clear that the company is a driving force in the global market and shows no sign of slowing down. When it came for Maple leaf to respond to the issue, they were very quick to act and addressed the issue right away. They almost had a similar incident in 2009 where they voluntarily recalled 26,000 hot dogs that had might have been contaminated (Maple Leaf Recall, 2009). This shows how quick to act the company has become to protect its customers. Non Market Since Maple leaf has become such a large organization they have the ability to give back to the community. They sponsor hundreds of events across numerous communities advocating and helping hunger issues. Even before the incident in 2008 Maple leaf was trying to bring about innovation in the field. In 2004, Maple leaf began tracing the DNA from the package meat products from the farm to your plate. This initiative was to prevent enormous political and economic risk if one of their products were to cause problems within or outside Canada. They also called for other meatpacking plants to do the same and which would bring about a high level of safety in industryTo further build on this idea in 2006 Maple leaf brought about their â€Å"40 steps to food safety† program. These 40 steps were meant to exceed government regulation and bring about transparency and traceability of their products. Since anything related to the food industry rates high in societal significance it only makes sense for Maple leaf to continue with this pattern. Integrated strategy The two practices Maple leaf uses to integrate the market and nonmarket activities are promoting the high quality of their goods mixed with promoting their high safety standards. These two areas work well together in promoting a strong brand image and to stay in the right side of public sentiment. They also tie in their practices of supporting communities who need help with hunger issues with in the major markets where they distribute their products. It is a smart move since, they are branching out globally and communities not only want to bring them in for the high quality products but also to help the less fortunate in their communities. You can also tie in Maple leaf’s quest for high safety standards directly from the nonmarket environment to the market environment by their actions to try to change the whole industry and their interactions in the regulatory field to change laws to increase safety. This shows leadership in the industry and makes Maple leaf look very proactive in the public eye. Repositioning From an overall standpoint, Maple leaf has been quite present in the nonmarket environment and their position on their integrated strategy seems to be an effective method. That doesnt mean they are perfect. There are some areas that they can improve on. Their focus on creating innovative safety practices is good, but their application in the nonmarket environment could be improved upon. Instead of just targeting the whole industry and the safety practices they should focus a little more on consumer level food safety. They should partner with more schools to help improve education in food safety and also improve the food preparation facilities within the schools. Their targeting of safety at home seems to be a little too broad and could see more focus. The work they do on improving the safety of their industry also needs to be made more public and their successes should be showcased. It took too much digging to find information on Maple leaf’s actions on improving safety within the industry. Their involvement with the regulatory bodies within Canada should be increased and they should also be more active in other countries laws of other countries in regards to food safety in their industry. Conclusion Maple leaf response to the listeria outbreak was done in a timely fashion and was dealt with appropriately. They admitted their liability and compensated the appropriate parties. They not only talked about their own faults but shifted some of the focus to the industry as a whole to limit less attention to them directly. Their nonmarket strategy was handled somewhat effectively by being proactive before and after the incident. When it came to product safety. The innovative work they did recommend to the industry should have been celebrated and should of have been made more public . Their work with helping communities around the world with hunger problems is an effective strategy but more promotion is needed. As stated before, direct interaction in schools promoting food safety would be, more effective means of positioning in the nonmarket environment. An incident like this most likely would have ruined some companies, but the effective response by Maple leaf allowed them to recover and slowly become a global leader in their industry.