Maple Leaf Foods — 23 died from listeria in deli meat. The CEO apologized immediately.

Maple Leaf Foods is one of Canada's largest food processing companies, headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, with a history dating back to 1927. Its packaged deli meats were sold in supermarkets across the country. In July 2008, a cluster of listeriosis cases was detected in Ontario. By August, the outbreak was linked to Maple Leaf's Bartor Road facility in Toronto, specifically production lines 8 and 9, where cooked meats were being contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes during the packaging process.

The investigation found that the packaging equipment at the plant was difficult to clean, allowing listeria to persist in the production environment even after cooking killed the bacteria in the meat itself. Federal inspectors at the plant averaged less than five hours of inspection time per day, sometimes as little as 70 minutes. The contamination was widespread: Maple Leaf ultimately recalled 220 products, and a total of 57 confirmed cases and 23 deaths were linked to the outbreak — one of the deadliest food safety crises in Canadian history.

The financial toll was severe. The recall and plant cleanup cost an estimated $20 million, roughly ten times the company's initial estimate. In December 2008, Maple Leaf settled a class-action lawsuit for $27 million. The company shut down the Bartor Road facility, laid off 250 workers during the cleanup, and deployed a team of 80 workers and outside microbiologists to deep-clean the plant using industrial sanitizers. Production lines 8 and 9 were permanently closed. The outbreak also led to a government inquiry that recommended sweeping reforms to Canada's food safety inspection system.