The story
History
Maple Leaf Foods is the result of the 1991 merger between Canada Packers and Maple Leaf Mills.
Canada Packers was founded in 1927 as a merger of several major Toronto meat packers, most prominently William Davies Company and was immediately Canada's largest food processor, a title it would hold for the next sixty years. Already in the 1930s, it used the brand name Maple Leaf along with Klik and Kam for its pork products, its main business, with its massive operations for processing hogs for exporting to the United Kingdom helped Toronto earn its nickname "Hogtown". Moving into western Canada it became Canada's largest beef slaughterer. In 1944, it also entered the tanning industry with the acquisition of Beardmore & Co.
Canada Packers diversified into other food products, including ice cream, cheese, and canned and frozen fruits and vegetables, by 1950 marketed under the York brand. In 1975, it was listed as the 14th-largest business in Canada.
During the 1980s, Canada Packers began to suffer. It closed some facilities, including its tannery. It moved into other markets, acquiring well-known brands such as Squirrel peanut butter and Black Diamond cheese.
Maple Leaf Mills was created in 1961 through the amalgamation of the Maple Leaf Milling Company Limited, Toronto Elevators Limited and Purity Flour Mills Limited. Its origins can be traced back over 170 years to Grantham Mills, built in 1836 in St. Catharines, Ontario.
In 1989, the McLean family that had dominated Canada Packers since its founding announced its intention to sell its stake in the company. The controlling interest passed in 1990 to the British Hillsdown Holdings, which already owned Maple Leaf Mills, through a complex transaction in which Canada Packers purchased Maple Leaf Mills in exchange for its own shares. In 1991, the combined company was renamed Maple Leaf Foods. The firm thus included a large bread division, best known for the Dempster's brand. During restructuring efforts led by David Newton as CEO and Lewis Rose as CFO, it sold or closed most of its slaughterhouses. These measures were successful and the company returned to profitability.
After being successfully revived, Maple Leaf Foods was purchased by Wallace McCain, formerly co-CEO of McCain Foods, who had been ousted by his brother and co-owner Harrison McCain, in 1995 along with the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan. In 2002, the company purchased San Francisco-based Grace Baking Company. In 2003, the company purchased rival meat packer Schneider Foods (founded by John Metz Schneider in 1890 in Berlin, now Kitchener, Ontario). The company is also one of Canada's largest agribusinesses, owning poultry and hog farms across the country. The main slaughterhouse is located in Brandon, Manitoba.
As the result of a series of divestitures culminating with the 2014 sale of the bakery division (Canada Bread Company), Maple Leaf today now only produces and sells fresh and packaged meats, as well as plant-based protein products via its acquisition of Lightlife and Field Roast.
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In late 2018, the company announced that the old plants in St. Marys, Brampton and Toronto, Ontario, Canada were scheduled to close in subsequent years but that a new poultry plant would be built in London. The cost of the 60,000 square meter facility was estimated at over $600 million partly funded by $34.5 million from the Ontario government and $28 million from the federal government. The closures were necessary because the relevant plants were "50 to 60 years old and severely growth constrained because of location, footprint or infrastructure and nearing the end of their productive capacity", according to then-CEO Michael McCain. As of November 2018, the company employed over 11,000 people across Canada and was selling its products in over 20 global markets.
In January 2020, CEO Michael McCain garnered media attention for criticizing "a narcissist in Washington" regarding events preceding Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 being shot down by Iran, in a series of tweets from the company Twitter account. McCain, who has been noted by media as "a role model for crisis management", was lauded by some, for his "humanity", and criticized by others, for supplanting shareholder primacy, as reactive calls for a boycott of the company impacted stock prices.
In February 2021, the company admitted in a management report that it was target of an "ongoing investigation by the Competition Bureau into the Canadian bread industry, including alleged price fixing and related securities disclosure issues." The company also noted in the management report that "Unfavourable resolution of these or other legal matters could have a material adverse effect on the Company, its financial condition and its reputation". In 2021, the company was named, with former subsidiary Canada Bread and its current parent company, Grupo Bimbo, and others, as defendants in a class-action bread price fixing lawsuit.
In May 2022, Michael McCain announced that he would become executive chairman and hand over CEO responsibilities to Curtis Frank by the 2023 annual meeting. On May 11, 2023, Curtis Frank was appointed as CEO.
In October 2025, Maple Leaf completed the spinoff of its pork business, Canada Packers Inc.
Mitchell's Gourmet Foods
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, is the headquarters of Mitchell's Gourmet Foods, formerly known as Intercontinental Packers, which produces the "Olympic Fine Meats" line of products and is one of Canada's largest meat processors, employing more than 1,400 Saskatonians.
Originally established in Saskatoon in 1940 by Fred Mendel as Intercontinental Packers, the business concentrated on canned meat products sold into the US and bacon for Britain during the war years. In 1998, the family-run business changed its name to Mitchell's Gourmet Foods.
In 1999, an alliance was formed with Schneider Corporation, and eventually the business was sold to Schneider on 12 November 2002. On 25 September 2003, Schneider was acquired by Maple Leaf Foods. Mitchell continues as an independent operating company of Schneider Foods. However, on 12 October 2006, Maple Leaf Foods, owners of Mitchell's, announced it would be closing down its major plant in Saskatoon over the next three years. A portion of the Circle Drive - 11th Street interchange now occupies part of the land.
On March 1, 2007, Maple Leaf Foods announced that it would cease operations of the cut/kill departments at their Saskatoon slaughterhouse. The last day of operation was June 1, 2009.
Meat alternatives
In April 2019, the company announced their intent to expand products that are alternatives to meat. The plan included the purchase of a 230,000-sq.-ft.processing plant in Shelbyville, Indiana. When completed in late 2020, this facility would become the largest of its kind in North America, according to the company. Maple Leaf was already marketing meatless products such as burgers and sausages under its LightLife brand, designed to closely resemble meat in appearance and flavour. Plant-based products were being manufactured at its Greenleaf Foods SPC plant-based division in Chicago, at a LightLife plant in Massachusetts and at Field Roast's in Seattle. The location of the new plant was logical because "more than 95 per cent of the LightLife and Field Roast business is in the United States today", according to the company. Maple Leaf announced, in January 2021, that it would instead purchase an existing plant in Indianapolis.
In 2026, Maple Leaf Foods announced that they would be re-launching the Yves Veggie Cuisine brand to Canadian consumers on July 1, 2026. This launch will include the reintroduction of like plant-based ground round and deli slices.
2009 precautionary recall
On 4 August 2009, roughly one year after the 2008 recall of Maple Leaf Foods products due to listeriosis contamination, another recall was ordered on nine wiener products. Brands affected were Hygrade, Shopsy's and Maple Leaf at its plant in Hamilton, Ontario, due to the possibility that they may have contained traces of Listeria monocytogenes. No cases of listeriosis related to this recall were confirmed.
From Wikipedia’s article on Maple Leaf Foods, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.7