These are extraordinary times. With the global spread of COVID-19 reaching pandemic levels, it is critical that we all do what we can to help reduce the spread and bring this virus under control.
At Maple Leaf Foods, we take our obligation to do our part very seriously. The health and well-being of our people, customers, consumers, business partners and communities is of paramount importance to us. With this in mind, we are taking a number of precautionary measures in our business and operating practices.
As a leading North American producer of meat, poultry and plant proteins, we already have strict safety policies and procedures in place. We will continue to maintain these high standards.
In addition, some of the new measures that we have implemented as of this week, include:
- Employees are working from home whenever possible and where that is not possible, we are taking additional precautions, including creating work spaces that maximize social distance when we can.
- We are eliminating in person meetings unless absolutely required and leveraging technology to facilitate meetings and other interactions as much as possible.
- We are restricting visitors to our offices and sites and foregoing any in-person visits to our customers, supplier, producer or other business partner.
- We are prohibiting business travel.
- If Team members or members of the household are travelling internationally personally, they are asked to report the travel to supervisors or Human Resources so that our quarantine policies can be properly applied.
We will continue to monitor developments and will further adapt our policies and practices as new information becomes available. To keep our employees informed, we have created an online resource center on our intranet where employees can access important information about COVID-19, our company status and key policies. Our Health Professionals Team comprised of nursing staff and safety professionals is managing an internal ‘Ask Me Anything’ page where employees can have their questions answered.
At the present time, all plants are operating, and our company is only minimally impacted. We continue to ship and export normally and we have not experienced any significant issues with our ability to procure necessary supplies. We will continue to work very closely with our supply chain partners and given that the situation is extremely fluid, we will continue to engage in thorough contingency planning.
We recognize that our food products are essential in nourishing people. We are committed to continuing to execute our business with excellence, maintaining operational stability and the health of our people and being vigilant in the steps we are taking to mitigate the risk of the spread of the virus in the communities where we operate.