CIPHI Discussion Forum

Meat packing plant caught fudging ‘best before’ dates
Published On Tue Jun 29 2010

Joanna Smith Ottawa Bureau

OTTAWA—A Toronto meat packing plant was caught fudging the “best before” dates on packages of ham about a month before it had to recall peppercorn salami when samples tested positive for potentially deadly bacteria.

Inspection reports from the federal food safety watchdog show the Siena Foods Ltd. meat processing plant in the Kipling Ave. and The Queensway area of Toronto — since closed after filing for bankruptcy — raised a number of concerns for government inspectors last year.

The Toronto Star requested the documents under the Access to Information Act after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Siena Foods Ltd. warned the public against consuming its cooked ham and some dried meat products after samples tested positive for Listeria monocytogenes in March.

At that time Ontario was experiencing an uptick in the number of people sick with listeriosis and public health officials found the bacteria in the cooked ham shared a genetic fingerprint with two cases that required hospitalization.

The documents for that time period have yet to be released, but the Star did recently receive inspection reports from August to December 2009, which includes a corrective action report for peppercorn salami that also tested positive for listeria on Dec. 3 and was recalled nationwide Dec. 21.

Most other problems spotted by inspectors were less serious, including incomplete records, a cracked conveyor belt, ceiling condensation, peeling paint, an employee not wearing his beard net and “a large chunk of pastrami” stuck in the slicer after the production line had switched over to mortadella.

One inspector found the company was incorrectly extending the shelf life of Black Forest ham from 56 days to 78 days — just over three weeks — by putting the wrong date on “best before” labels on about 5,500 cartons.

A corrective action report issued Oct. 30, 2009 noted someone at the plant told a federal meat inspector that “the product is sent to a storage facility and stored at 1 degree (Celsius) and they feel that they can extend the shelf life”.

That was a problem, because according to the inspection report, the mandatory food safety plan the company submitted to the federal government—called the Hazard Analysis Critical Point (HACCP) plan—says the shelf life of that particular product is 56 days when packaged as a whole and 42 days when sliced.

A spokeswoman for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said it is up to the manufacturer to determine the “durable life dates” — which “refer to product quality, freshness, look and taste, not safety” and are different from expiry dates — but if the shelf life is mentioned in the HACCP plan then it must be followed.

The president of the agriculture union at the Public Service Alliance of Canada said changing “best before” dates without following the proper procedures is a frequent occurrence.

“Usually, of course, it’s claimed to be an innocent mistake or an oversight,” said Bob Kingston, who is a former inspector himself and pointed out that inspectors hardly ever find these errors going in the other direction to reduce shelf life. “The mistakes always seem to benefit them that way.”

The inspector observed the incorrect labels being removed and replaced with the proper dates and the corrective action report was closed Nov. 18, 2009, but Canadian Food Inspection Agency spokeswoman Lisa Gauthier said the listeria issue has not yet been resolved and “the plant is not producing product at this time.”

Siena Foods is owned by a numbered corporation registered in Windsor, Ont. that could not be reached for comment. Industry Canada records show the company filed for bankruptcy on Apr. 24, declaring that it owed $9.3 million to creditors and had assets worth only $8.8 million.

Enzo DeLuca, who was president and owner of Siena Foods until last year, said the recalls “were very important factors” in the shutdown.

“When it happened it was obvious that it was going to be very serious financially,” said DeLuca, who remains the landlord of the building where the plant was located.