Good things and listeriosis gro-o-ow, in Ontario!

Maple Leaf Foods (not to be confused with Maple Lodge, a mistake I've made in front of too many people) has recalled over 200 varieties of meat after several Canadians started getting listeriosis.

You probably know that. Unfortunately, there's a lot more you don't know.

Maple Leaf management has been commended by the Toronto Sun (among others) for their handling of this crisis - doing everything they can to ensure that there is no risk whatsoever to the public, no matter how minute, and putting a public face (Michael McCain) to the company. McCain is taking full responsibility, rather than blaming the plant manager, or the health department, or anyone else. Good for him.

But there's a bigger problem here. People in grocery stores (and I technically still work in one, so I know what I'm talking about) are now leery of all Maple Leaf products.

Maple Leaf originally recalled about 20 different products, which were the ones they had reason to believe could have come in contact with the bacteria.

Then, a few days later, they upped the list to over 200 lines, but as a measure of goodwill, not because there was any significant (or insignificant) public risk in consuming these products.

Unfortunately, most people aren't aware of that last part, and think there's hundreds of Maple Leaf product lines out there which will make them violently ill - bad PR for the company.

I was at work yesterday, when a customer asked me why we still had Maple Leaf products out. My response was that they weren't all included in the recall. "No, but they've recalled so much, how do you know anymore?" Well, they've recalled everything made in that plant, I'm pretty sure stuff they make hundreds of miles away is safe from at least that outbreak.

Another customer was a little smarter - she'd seen the news that you could tell what was produced in that plant by the 97B at the beginning of the product code. She found one pack of meat that had no code whatsoever, and asked us why it was still out when it might be 97B meat. It wasn't anything included in the recall, therefore not produced at the Toronto plant, therefore not 97B. Better luck next time.

I'm not really (or at all) a business student, but I guess this is what happens when well-intentioned damage control efforts go too far?

--Ryan