INVESTING IN OUR PEOPLE AND COMMUNITIES
One of our core values is to Do What’s Right. This goes to the heart of our relationship with our people and our communities. Starting with workplace safety, 2009 was our ninth consecutive year of continuous improvement in reportable injury frequency, with overall improvement of nearly 18% across all Maple Leaf operations. Leading the list was our Laval bakery, with over 150,000 hours logged without a reportable injury. Our Burlington and Lagimodiere meat plants both received the CEO Gold Award for operating 1,000,000 hours without a lost time injury – an amazing result! We are committed to being an industry leader in workplace safety.

The thrust of our community outreach is leveraging our skills and capabilities as a food company to help people in need. In 2009, we donated nearly $4 million, including cash and in-kind food products, to food banks and social service organizations. Working with Food Banks Canada, we provided a nutritious meal to over 100,000 needy Canadians during the December holiday season. We launched a new partnership with Wellspring, Canada’s largest cancer support group, by funding a new kitchen at the Sunnybrook Expansion project where patients and their families can learn about healthy food preparation. Through the efforts of our employees, we supported community and international efforts to Kenya and Haiti, providing food relief where it is needed most. These are snapshots of a great many activities that reflect an ongoing commitment to deeply connect with our people and communities through actions that make a difference.

On the sustainability front, for the third year we will be reporting our 2009 carbon inventory to the Carbon Disclosure Project, a non-government organization that acts on behalf of more than 500 institutional investors holding more than $64 trillion in assets under management to collect high quality information on climate change. We have also measured the quantities of waste we generate at a representative snapshot of our manufacturing facilities to determine how much of it is diverted from landfill. Our studies show that 93% of the waste generated in our manufacturing facilities is diverted from landfill, with much of it recycled into such beneficial uses as animal feed, cosmetics or biodiesel. There is much more we can and must do to reduce our environmental footprint. A detailed three-year strategy has been prepared that defines targets for the five areas where we can have most impact – energy, greenhouse gas reduction, solid waste reduction, water conservation and packaging. We expect to implement this plan starting this year.

LOOKING AHEAD
Maple Leaf has all the right fundamentals and strategic focus to deliver sustained earnings growth, consistent with other global branded food companies, and we plan to deliver these returns. Our business performance is recovering and we demonstrated substantial traction in implementing our strategic agenda. The blueprint is clearer than ever; the commitment of thousands of passionate people more intense than ever. Together, we will deliver.

Sincerely,