Meeting and exceeding consumer needs for high-quality, nutritious and innovative food products also means doing what’s right for our employees, our environment and our communities.
We are making excellent progress on the journey to becoming a global leader in food safety, starting with the standardization of Maple Leaf’s Food Safety Quality Management Systems in all of our food manufacturing plants. We achieved this through the Global Food Safety Initiative (“GFSI”) benchmarked British Retail Consortium certification, with consistent high standards of quality, safety, and operational criteria. We are working with our co-manufacturers to ensure they achieve equivalent certification. In 2011, we also launched an internal audit program to monitor and enforce adherence to our own strict standards.
In collaboration with the University of Guelph and the Canadian Research Institute for Food Safety, we have delivered a unique Food Safety Foundations education program to over 1,250 Maple Leaf employees. We have also launched an on-line training platform in our manufacturing facilities for employees, and established a robust 14-step food safety risk assessment process that is now an integral part of all new product development at Maple Leaf Foods.
Becoming a leader in food safety requires staying current on global best practices, technologies and emerging food safety risks. We continued to work with our Food Safety Advisory Council, which is composed of external global food safety experts. We also brought industry, scientists and government together at our third annual Food Safety Symposium to debate how the food industry, government, academia and consumers could collaborate more effectively toward the goal of eradicating foodborne illness.
AS ONE OF CANADA’S LEADING FOOD COMPANIES, WE HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO GIVE BACK TO OUR COMMUNITIES AND TO WORK WITH OTHERS TO ENHANCE FOOD SECURITY AND SUSTAINABILITY.
2011 marked our 10th consecutive year of continuous improvement in reportable injury frequency. Across all Maple Leaf operations, we achieved a 12.7% improvement in our Occupational Health & Safety reportable frequency compared to 2010, an achievement that is among the best in the food industry.
We track and communicate our workplace safety record each month across all facilities and take the results extremely seriously. Workplace safety and well-run facilities go hand in hand. We are proud of our track record and the safety culture that is entrenched at all of our facilities.
As one of Canada’s leading food companies, we have a responsibility to give back to our communities and to work with others to enhance food security and sustainability. In 2011, we raised and donated well over $1.5 million to support community organizations that help disadvantaged citizens, which included donations of meat and bakery products to food banks and organizations across Canada and in the U.S. and the U.K. We expanded our Community Outreach Policy, and our employees embraced a campaign with UNICEF to raise $100,000 for famine relief in the Horn of Africa. Maple Leaf has enshrined the importance of employee volunteerism, providing our people with paid days off and the opportunity to participate in sabbaticals to lend their time and talents to make a difference in local and global communities.
We’ve continued to make progress to reduce the impact on the environment from our operations. Given the urgency of issues related to environmental degradation, we recognize that more needs to and will be done.
Maple Leaf has invested over $85 million in environmental control systems and $10 million annually to manage our environmental programs.
Respect for the well-being, proper handling and humane slaughter of all animals within our care is a social and ethical responsibility. It requires maintaining respect for the animals while providing consumers with high-quality, wholesome and affordable food. Strict adherence to our animal welfare policy is monitored and enforced. Maple Leaf retains humane handling experts to inspect our hog and poultry primary processing facilities, which are also regularly monitored by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and veterinarians.
We support our commitment to animal welfare by:
Maple Leaf has a deeply rooted values-based culture that defines what we hold important and what we expect of each other. These values represent our compass and underpin all aspects of our organization: the people we attract, how we act, the decisions we make and our business success.
Do what’s right... by always acting with integrity, which is fundamental to respecting where we work and who we work with, and having our customers, suppliers, communities and other stakeholders respect us.
Deliver winning results... by expecting to win, by owning personal and collective accountability to deliver, and by taking appropriate risks without fear of failure, while challenging for constant improvement.
Build collaborative teams... by attracting only the best people, by serving, recognizing and rewarding their development and success, and by fostering a collaborative and open environment with the freedom to disagree, but always making timely decisions and aligning behind them.
Get things done in a fact-based, disciplined way... by seizing the initiative with the highest level of urgency and energy and by meeting all commitments responsively while being objective, analytical and using effective processes.
Learn and grow, inwardly and outwardly... by being introspective personally and organizationally, by freely admitting mistakes or development needs, and by deeply understanding and connecting with consumers and stakeholders globally as primary sources of learning and growth.
Dare to be transparent, passionate and humble... by having a culture where people are encouraged to speak openly, act with passion, and value collective success over personal success.
Our deep commitment to a strong values-based culture resulted in the Company being recognized again this year as one of Canada’s Top Corporate Cultures by Waterstone Capital.
Full 2011 Annual Report
PDF (4.2 MB)
