OTTAWA -- A massive recall of meats was expanded Monday after more than two dozen types of ready-made sandwiches from a Calgary, Alberta-based company were said to be possibly contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) issued a statement early Monday that Lucerne Foods was recalling 28 varieties of sandwiches because some contained Maple Leaf Foods deli meats involved in a massive recall last week. The sandwiches are sold under the Safeway and TakeAway Café brands at Safeway and Mac's Convenience Stores in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
There [image-nocss] have been no reported illnesses associated with the consumption of the sandwiches, the agency said, according to a report by The Medicine Hat News and the Canadian Press.
By Monday morning, all sandwiches in Safeway stores across the country had been removed, Canada Safeway vice president of public affairs David Ryzebol told the newspaper. New sandwiches with meat not involved in the recall was put on the shelves. The sales impact will be felt at a 100% loss because the sandwiches had to be discarded, "but we have to err on the side of food safety," said Ryzebol.
Mac's Convenience Stores Inc. issued a press release stating they would have replacement product on their store shelves Tuesday, said the report. "We have [voluntarily removed all products from our shelves even though there has been no evidence of contamination within our product line or within the raw materials used to produce our products at our supplier's facility," it said.
As stores responded to the recall, public health inspectors have been heavily involved, Dr. Paul Schnee, Medical Officer of Health for Palliser Health Region, told the paper. A coordinated provincial response will be released shortly, he added.
Maple Leaf temporarily closed one of its Toronto plants after the bacterium was found on some of its products. Laboratory tests have conclusively linked some of the products to the deaths of four people, three in Ontario and one in British Columbia. There have been 21 confirmed cases of listeriosis in British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan, and 30 cases remain under investigation.
Products affected by the widened recall cover a range of nearly three dozen brands, including Artisan Collection, Best Value, Bittners, Boston Pizza, Burns, Campfire, Compliments, Coorsh, Country Morning, Equality, Foodservice, Harmonie, Hickory Farms, Hygrade, Kirkland Signature, Maple Leaf, Mayfair/Marque, McDonald's, Mitchell's, Mr. Sub, No Name, Northern Best Value, Olympic, Overlander, Parma, Pizza Nova, Rouyn, Safeway, Schneiders, Shopsy's, The Butcher's Cut, Tim Hortons, Western Family and Westfair.
Mac 's Convenience Stores, one of Canada 's veteran retail brands, is a division of Laval, Quebec-based Alimentation Couche Tard Inc., the leader in the Canadian convenience store industry
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