Past Winner Stories
Maple Leaf Farms
www.mapleleaffarms.com
Since its founding in 1958, Maple Leaf Farms has experienced tremendous growth and success, making it an industry leader and the largest producer of duck products in North America. But with size and success have come challenges.
Maple Leaf has seen intense price competition that destabilized the market and experienced a capital crunch when it purchased its largest competitor. Such challenges proved good experience when the company hit even bigger roadblocks.
The company experienced considerable success in 2000. Maple Leaf posted record sales and saw unprecedented growth with its chicken and duck lines particularly its value-added duck products. As a result, the company had implemented aggressive new business plans and goals geared at expanding markets and increasing production. But events in early 2001 caused the company to focus instead on rebuilding consumer confidence and maintaining the well being of the company.
In mid-January, Maple Leaf issued a voluntary recall for 4,400 pounds of some of its most popular fully cooked duck products when a wholesaler reported a positive test for listeria. The company reacted quickly, notifying the USDA and voluntarily recalling all products with the same lot/date code.
"By the end of January, we felt the situation was under control,” said CEO Terry Tucker.
Though additional testing proved inconclusive and no illnesses resulted, Maple Leaf responded by stepping up testing procedures and undergoing several quality assurance audits. Despite such steps, the company identified another suspect sample and issued another voluntary recall in early February for 6,000 pounds of product. Realizing the potential problem could be more widespread than first thought, the company made the decision to suspend its roasting operations and withdraw all roasted items.
First, coordinating and executing a recall of such magnitude stretched the company's physical and financial resources and ultimately disrupted its ordinary business operations. It took months for Maple Leaf to wrap up the recall and resume production, all of which carried a price tag of approximately $1.5 million.
Second, the recalls undermined consumer confidence in the company's most popular products. Though no illnesses were reported, the recalls received widespread press coverage.
Third, the company had to identify where and how the potential problems originated. “To do this, we halted production of our roasted duck products and painstakingly analyzed each aspect of production,” Tucker noted.
Just as Maple Leaf was making headway in rebuilding the business, the terrorist attacks of September 11,2001, occurred. The food industry as a whole saw a slump in sales that prompted Maple Leaf to cut back and develop innovative solutions to its money crunch. This has been the toughest part, said Tucker, “dealing with the volatility of the marketplace, i.e., the post-9-11 downturn in the food service business.”
At the end of its investigation, Maple Leaf made a number of changes to its operation, including changes in the physical layout of operations as well as in its cooking process and testing program While the cooking operations were down, marketing and operations departments worked to find a co-packer who could produce its half duck temporarily so Maple Leaf could continue to meet demand in its key markets. Though it couldn't produce enough to meet all demand, it could fill orders for some of its most important accounts.
“Admittedly, this whole situation was trying for our customers,” said Tucker. "Though Maple Leaf Farms' wide-scale market withdrawal created numerous challenges for our company, our employees pulled together and worked tirelessly to rebuild consumer confidence in our products and develop a better way of producing our value-added products.”
Maple Leaf has seen intense price competition that destabilized the market and experienced a capital crunch when it purchased its largest competitor. Such challenges proved good experience when the company hit even bigger roadblocks.
The company experienced considerable success in 2000. Maple Leaf posted record sales and saw unprecedented growth with its chicken and duck lines particularly its value-added duck products. As a result, the company had implemented aggressive new business plans and goals geared at expanding markets and increasing production. But events in early 2001 caused the company to focus instead on rebuilding consumer confidence and maintaining the well being of the company.
In mid-January, Maple Leaf issued a voluntary recall for 4,400 pounds of some of its most popular fully cooked duck products when a wholesaler reported a positive test for listeria. The company reacted quickly, notifying the USDA and voluntarily recalling all products with the same lot/date code.
"By the end of January, we felt the situation was under control,” said CEO Terry Tucker.
Though additional testing proved inconclusive and no illnesses resulted, Maple Leaf responded by stepping up testing procedures and undergoing several quality assurance audits. Despite such steps, the company identified another suspect sample and issued another voluntary recall in early February for 6,000 pounds of product. Realizing the potential problem could be more widespread than first thought, the company made the decision to suspend its roasting operations and withdraw all roasted items.
First, coordinating and executing a recall of such magnitude stretched the company's physical and financial resources and ultimately disrupted its ordinary business operations. It took months for Maple Leaf to wrap up the recall and resume production, all of which carried a price tag of approximately $1.5 million.
Second, the recalls undermined consumer confidence in the company's most popular products. Though no illnesses were reported, the recalls received widespread press coverage.
Third, the company had to identify where and how the potential problems originated. “To do this, we halted production of our roasted duck products and painstakingly analyzed each aspect of production,” Tucker noted.
Just as Maple Leaf was making headway in rebuilding the business, the terrorist attacks of September 11,2001, occurred. The food industry as a whole saw a slump in sales that prompted Maple Leaf to cut back and develop innovative solutions to its money crunch. This has been the toughest part, said Tucker, “dealing with the volatility of the marketplace, i.e., the post-9-11 downturn in the food service business.”
At the end of its investigation, Maple Leaf made a number of changes to its operation, including changes in the physical layout of operations as well as in its cooking process and testing program While the cooking operations were down, marketing and operations departments worked to find a co-packer who could produce its half duck temporarily so Maple Leaf could continue to meet demand in its key markets. Though it couldn't produce enough to meet all demand, it could fill orders for some of its most important accounts.
“Admittedly, this whole situation was trying for our customers,” said Tucker. "Though Maple Leaf Farms' wide-scale market withdrawal created numerous challenges for our company, our employees pulled together and worked tirelessly to rebuild consumer confidence in our products and develop a better way of producing our value-added products.”