Canada-Maple Leaf Foods.

CANADA - Maple Leaf Foods has applauded the Canadian Government’s new listeria policy released on Friday, which it described as an essential next step towards higher levels of safety in the meat industry.

One must remember that the listeria food poisoning that killed 20 people traced to meat from Maple Leaf was caused by sloppy management and not cleaning the meat slicing machines correctly each day.

Mr McCain said at the time that the machines were designed in such a way, they were difficult to clean, however the manufacturers denied this citing other users of the machines.

Assuming 22 people died in China from sloppy management and negligence what a field day the media would have had. Making matters worse Maple Leaf have been subject to two more meat recalls since this tragic event.

The government are not going to come into the plant and clean the bloody machines for you, this is about getting up from behind the desk and managing the meat plant.

"We are encouraged to see the implementation of enhanced standards that will raise food safety standards across the industry," said Michael McCain, President and CEO.

Mr McCain said the best food safety system involves strong industry participation, with equally strong regulatory standards and oversight. This new government listeria management policy sets a new and more stringent regulatory standard.

"To a great extent we have put in place enhanced food safety protocols that meet or exceed these new requirements. The goal of industry should not be to simply meet the standard, but like Maple Leaf should seek to exceed it," he said.

"Our aggressive programs have demonstrated that listeria will be found routinely in ready-to-eat processing plant. Early detection is important as it ensures appropriate remedial actions are taken. While our company has learned, and continues to learn, that listeria control requires enormous attention to detail and rigor, the first step is to aggressively test to find where listeria will thrive in the plant environment and prevent it from entering the food supply," added Mr McCain.