Canada-Cheaper meats are being sought.

Maple Leaf Foods is banking on the recession to help boost sales after a deadly listeria bacteria outbreak last year resulted in a costly recall that hurt its reputation and the bottom line.

Maple Leaf Foods has a business model and product portfolio that are basically "recession resilient," Michael McCain, its chief executive, said on Wednesday.

"We’re on the side of the angels from a recession perspective. The balance of our portfolio is not gourmet food," McCain said at a retail and consumer conference in Toronto run by CIBC World Markets.

"We’re not selling fillet mignon -- the processed meat business is up materially today."

McCain said his company is seeing a "substantial movement" toward consumers opting to prepare meals at home instead of eating at restaurants.

"Our food-service sales teams are in a state of depression and our retail sales teams are euphoric right now," McCain said. "Now having said that, we’re underweighted as an organization in food service and overweighted in retail, so that trend’s our friend."

The food service business supplies restaurants, hospitals and other institutional customers.

One of Canada’s largest food processors, Maple Leaf Foods faced the largest single product recall in the history of Canadian food and agriculture, McCain said, adding he dedicated the remainder of last year to crisis management.

Last summer’s listeriosis food-poisoning outbreak cost the company as much as C$69 million ($54.3 million) before taxes in the fourth quarter of 2008.

At least 20 deaths were linked to contaminated deli meats from a Maple Leaf Foods processing plant in Toronto. The company later said it believed, after an extensive investigation, two slicers had been harboring the bacteria.

Last month, Maple Leaf Foods reached a C$25 million settlement in a series of class-action suits.

Only last week, however, the company announced a voluntary recall of 1,100 cases of its Shopsy’s All Beef Frankfurters and Maple Leaf Original Hot Dogs.