Maple Leaf is committed to using proven global best practices in food safety to keep food as safe as possible. Since the events of last August Maple Leaf has made substantial changes to significantly reduce Listeria findings in our plants.
While Listeria can never be completely eliminated from the environment, one of the ways we are working to prevent the risk of potential illness is through the reformulation of certain Maple Leaf products with newly approved food ingredients and other emerging food safety technologies. As an additional measure of reducing bacterial growth, Maple Leaf is adding diacetate and lactate in certain ready-to-eat meat products.
When added as ingredients in ready-to-eat products, diacetate and lactate act as bacteria growth inhibitors. This is important because unlike most other pathogens Listeria grows under refrigeration.
Diacetate is a popular flavouring agent that inhibits the growth of bacteria. It is used in seasonings, sauces and ketchup, in bread and processed meats as it helps to increase the safety of prepared foods. Lactate is the salt of lactic acid which in combination with diacetate has been found to inhibit the growth of bacteria in ready-to-eat meats.
In September 2008, Health Canada approved the use of diacetate as a preservative in certain preparations of meats, meat by-products, poultry meat, poultry meat by-products, prepared and preserved fish products at a maximum level of use of 0.25% of final product weight.
Maple Leaf Foods is currently in the process of modifying recipes to incorporate the combination of diacetate and lactate in ready-to-eat products. The addition of these ingredients has modified the ingredient listing and nutritional profile of each of the reformulated products. Please visit our website at www.thedishonline.ca to view the revised product profiles.
Maple Leaf is committed to communications with our customers in a direct and candid manner. As such, we introduced an external company Blog this past March. We want to know what you think so we welcome you to write to us with your thoughts. You can also visit the blog for great tips on making the most of food safety at you home or cottage during the warm summer months.