Chicken shortage not linked to Listeria outbreak

BY KIRK STARRATT

kstarratt@kentvilleadvertiser.ca

NovaNewsNow.com

Although some customers turned away over the Labour Day weekend might have thought a shortage of chicken at a New Minas restaurant had something to do with the massive recall of Maple Leaf Foods meat products, that wasn’t the case at all.

New Minas Swiss Chalet and Harvey’s operations associate Rob Graves said they don’t deal with Maple Leaf. Eden Valley Farms supplies the New Minas Swiss Chalet with its chicken.

The reason Swiss Chalet ran out of chicken Sunday, Aug. 31 between 2:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. was they misprojected the amount that would be demanded. Graves said they had a lot of unexpected business due to bikers traveling through for a rally in Digby and the IWK Walk-a-thon.

Graves said they were unable to immediately replenish their supply and had to put up notices that no chicken was available. He said about 120 customers were turned away as a result.

He said none of the Swiss Chalets deal with Maple Leaf at this time. They used to, but changed distributors. The New Minas Swiss Chalet will do a minimum of $50,000 in business with ACA Cooperative Limited (Eden Valley Farms) this year. There is a movement to have all Swiss Chalet restaurants in the province supplied by ACA. Graves said this would represent about half a million dollars in business with the local chicken distributor annually and this would create a lot of positive economic spinoffs for the Valley area.

“We love dealing directly with them,” Graves said. “The area manager is very supportive of sourcing locally.”

None of their restaurants affected

Although people might have perceived a problem with the organization as a result of the listeriosis recall, none of their restaurants were affected.

Maple Leaf Foods launched a massive recall after listeria bacterium was detected on some products from their North York, Ontario plant. There were only a few products named in the initial recall, but the company has since pulled a total of 220 different products and varieties from store shelves as a precautionary measure.

Canadian health officials say 12 deaths have been linked to the listeriosis outbreak from the Maple Leaf plant: 11 in Ontario and one in British Columbia. Health officials said shortly after the expanded recall they were dealing with 26 confirmed cases of listeriosis and were investigating another 29 suspected cases.

Boston Pizza issued a news release stating they’re working cooperatively with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Maple Leaf Foods as part of a voluntary recall of all meat products produced at the facility in question. Maple Leaf Foods only supplies Boston Pizza with roast beef produced at the facility and this product has been tested and has shown no evidence of contamination.

However, as a precautionary measure, Boston Pizza stopped serving roast beef supplied by the Maple Leaf Foods facility effective Aug. 23.

Several local grocery stores and restaurants were contacted for comment on the impact the recall has had on their operations, but managers or public relations officers failed to respond prior to press time.

Dealing with listeria

Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Dr. David Butler-Jones stated in a recent news release that cooking or heating your food until it is piping hot would kill the listeria bacterium. Cooked foods should be refrigerated immediately and kitchens and utensils should be kept clean. Avoiding unpasteurized milk and milk products and washing fruit and vegetables is important.

Listeriosis can cause symptoms such as persistent fever, severe headaches, neck stiffness, nausea and vomiting. Symptoms can occur as little as two days after eating a contaminated product, but it could take over two months. Healthy people who are exposed to the bacteria are rarely affected. There is potential risk to seniors, young children, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems.