Absolutely. Obviously, changes were incorporated into Canada in response to the tragic issues of 2008, even in advance of the Weatherill report, as to how we ourselves and well as the private sector undertake to surveil both the environment and the end product.
The trigger on the current recall, in fact, was CFIA testing of end product in a sandwich combination on the east coast as part of that programming, and we did detect listeria in the sandwich product. Obviously there was a lot of concern at the outset because of the ham and cheese component of this. Was it a meat issue? Was it a dairy issue?
We were able to demonstrate very clearly that it was not the meat side of the equation of the sandwich but in fact the cheese component, which led us back to the scenario with the company in Quebec. We were able to isolate the potential area of contamination to one line of production in their massive undertaking. We were able, with the company, to ensure that the production ceased while we carried out a more targeted listeria investigation.
The trace-outs from that, as you say, have been quite extensive. It is one of the largest cheese manufacturers in Canada. Their level of distribution or penetration of the market is significant. The challenge, again, when we come back to the issue of traceability, remains that the tracing of the primary product has led us into a number of secondary and tertiary suppliers. So people who manufacture these types of sandwiches, major grocery chains that put out deli trays, and those sorts of things do require us to be vigilant, and that's what we're doing. We've had great support from the company.
I can't say enough about the support from the provinces, but that is also part of the food safety system in Canada. It's not just CFIA. It's not just the federal government. We have provincial people out there also helping us to verify the effectiveness of the recalls as they're currently being played out.