Maple Leaf earns my confidence

I think if there is any organization, in my memory, that has handled a bad situation well it has to be Maple Leaf Foods. They don’t need to be made heroes, but in my view they’ve handled the whole tainted meat issue with compassion and professionalism.

This issue that erupted in August 2008 with the discovery of some cold packaged meat products containing listeriosis could have been marred or made ugly by all kinds of denial, and “no comment” comments.

But right from the get-go you could tell this was a company that wanted to accept responsibility, first of all to stop the spread of the tainted products that ultimately caused 56 people to become ill and played a role in the death of 20 people, and then to clean up what ever problem there was in their meat processing line and make sure it never happened again.

Maybe I just watch too many Law and Orders, but often enough I run into companies and even industry associations that figure the best policy in dealing with a negative subject is either to deny it or at least ignore it. Play dumb and the problem will go away.

I don’t know if I ever lost faith in Maple Leaf products during this whole affair. I am sure some people did. My 23-year-old son, for example, who is a bit of an odd ball - when it comes to food choices -  anyway, won’t eat any cold meat products now unless they are fried to ‘kill the bacteria’. But, if I ever was a bit leery about Maple Leaf products last fall, I certainly now have every confidence that they are producing completely safe food products.

And a large part of that has to do with their belief in “honesty is the best policy.”