Thank you very much, Jim.
What I'd like to do first is to pass around some of our products, just to show you some of the things we make, and then I'll continue on with my thoughts.
Good evening, everyone. As Jim said, my name is Peter Stein and I'm the director of quality assurance and food safety for Piller's.
I first wish, on behalf of the Piller's group of companies, to extend our condolences to the families who experienced loss during last year's listeriosis outbreak.
As an industry, we share in the responsibility of food safety in Canada and beyond. We believe that food safety is not a competitive edge, and we are working with the Canadian Meat Council and industry to focus on improving food safety in our own plants and across the industry. At Piller's, we have internally raised the bar in food safety and we take full responsibility and ownership of the commitment to ensure that our plants produce safe product for our retail and food service customers and, ultimately, the end consumer.
I have been looking forward to presenting to you today and discussing who we are and what we are doing to improve food safety in our facilities. Of course, I can only speak for our organization on these matters, and I look forward to your questions afterwards.
Last summer the processed meat industry changed forever in public perception and confidence. This, in turn, has changed the food industry, and I think the same can be said for the CFlA. We all need to work together and do the right things to improve and restore consumer confidence and product safety, by walking hand in hand down the same road in the same direction.
I assure you that recently the pace of change has increased significantly: changes in what the end consumer expects from our industry, confidence in the food safety of the products they buy. But end consumers also want more value, lower salt, less fat, allergen controls, and a cleaner ingredient list. As well, our customers have expectations for us to produce products with a longer shelf life, and we experience market pressures from imports and changing Canadian export regulations.
For us at Piller's, we are singularly focused on stepping up a number of programs and initiatives in each plant to be proactive in an ever-changing environment. As a result, we have been continually improving our food safety programs and systems corporately. We look for potential issues and concerns, then investigate the risk and follow the science in making our corrective action decisions.
These would include more aggressive sanitation practices, including two equipment inspections during the sanitation shift. We have implemented daily food-contact surface sanitizing before production starts, at breaks, lunch, and shift changes. We have new sanitation equipment that allows better cleaning of parts that are normally difficult to clean by hand. We are changing sanitizer chemistry to a more effective and aggressive program that is less affected by water quality and is specific to proteins. We have implemented a three-tier program for packaging equipment disassembly and cleaning protocol, including deep internal testing for bacteria. We are increasing our quality assurance staff in every plant to improve our monitoring capabilities. We hired a corporate quality assurance and food safety director to help bring an overall consistent focus on food safety. We are on track to double our micro-testing across the board for environmental and product testing. We are actively looking for problems even where we currently have no surface evidence of there being any.
Our most recent food safety news is that we have installed two new high-pressure cold pasteurization machines that cost our company over $8 million. We are taking food safety seriously. We invested heavily in this new processing technology, including the two largest high-pressure processing units in North America. Piller's had looked into this technology years ago and decided to move forward in November 2006. The initial reason for entering into this $8 million investment was for removing additives and preservatives from the ingredient lists, as requested by our customers. This technology kills all bacteria, including pathogens, from the products already in their retail packages without the additives. I have some examples here of samples that are treated and untreated just to show you that there really is no difference in the appearance of the product.
Having said all this, Piller's did have their first voluntary product recall this April. There were no illnesses reported. It was a small recall, with very little product, involving only one plant and involving only one piece of equipment in that plant. We did go over and above what CFIA recommended and voluntarily recalled any product that was still in circulation from that line. We acted quickly and made the right decision with no hesitation. What happened to us this April just confirmed to us that listeria is a clean-plant concern, and no matter what is being done in the name of food safety, there is always opportunity and the need for improvement.
In every one of our four production facilities in Ontario, we use state-of-the-art meat processing equipment, the most up-to-date smokehouses, and the highest quality slicing and packaging production machinery. All of our facilities are fully networked with the most advanced high-tech computer systems. As a result, we have the capability to manufacture all our products at any one of our facilities, so we can meet the demands of any customer, any request, any time of the year.
As of April 1 this year, the new listeria testing program has caused our registered warehouse facility in Waterloo to store over 700 additional pallets of product on a hold and release program, waiting for test results at any one given time. Meat processing facilities, including ours, employ highly professional food science and microbiology experts to maintain their food safety programs. We also endeavour to work closely and openly with CFIA to help them understand our processes and to implement and follow federal programs correctly. We do encourage CFIA to implement their new initiatives fully and properly in all federal establishments equally to ensure consistency and uniformity. We have recognized that this can be a challenge at times.
I didn't want to close without presenting a comment or a wish list. So some of the things we at Piller's feel strongly about are as follows:
One, imported products must meet the same standards and regulations as we face here in Canada.
Two, all plants, both provincial and federal, should be included in the scope of the new listeria policy released this past April 1. This safeguards all potential customers.
Three, more and faster access to new industry innovations and interventions is needed.
Four, the food industry is now the largest in Canada, recently surpassing the automotive industry. Therefore, we need the same access to government research and innovation funding to facilitate widespread food safety improvement nationally.
Five, we must have clarity of interpretation and consistent implementation of existing and new regulations and programs across Canada.
Thank you very much for your time. We look forward to any questions you may have.