XL Foods Inc. is a Canadian

meat packing The meat-packing industry (also spelled meatpacking industry or meat packing industry) handles the slaughtering, processing, packaging, and distribution of meat from animals such as cattle, pigs, sheep and other livestock. Poultry is generally no ...

company. The company is a subsidiary of Nilsson Brothers Inc. based in

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

. From 2009 until 2013, XL Foods' Lakeside Packers Division was located just west of

Brooks, Alberta Brooks is a city in southeast Alberta, Canada that is surrounded by the County of Newell. It is located on Highway 1 (Trans-Canada Highway) and the Canadian Pacific Railway, approximately southeast of Calgary, and northwest of Medicine Hat. Th ...

, in Newell County. This facility was the second largest beef-processing operation in Canada. During this period the company was by far the largest employer in Brooks, employing more than 2,200 people in 2012.

History

XL Foods grew from a collection of

ranch A ranch (from es, rancho/Mexican Spanish) is an area of land, including various structures, given primarily to ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle and sheep. It is a subtype of a farm. These terms are most often ...

es,

feedlot A feedlot or feed yard is a type of animal feeding operation (AFO) which is used in intensive animal farming, notably beef cattle, but also swine, horses, sheep, turkeys, chickens or ducks, prior to slaughter. Large beef feedlots are called conc ...

s and feed mills into one of the foremost Canadian-owned and operated beef processors in

Western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada� ...

. Nilsson Bros. reached an agreement to purchase the core beef assets, along with the company name, on November 22, 1998. In 2009, XL Foods bought Lakeside Packers from its U.S. parent company

Tyson Foods Tyson Foods, Inc. is an American multinational corporation, based in Springdale, Arkansas, that operates in the food industry. The company is the world's second-largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef, and pork after JBS S.A. It annually ...

, following a bitter strike at Lakeside that lasted through most of 2005 after the workers joined the

United Food and Commercial Workers The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) is a labor union representing approximately 1.3 million workers in the United States and Canada in industries including retail; meatpacking, food processing and manufacturing; hosp ...

labour union.

XL Lakeside shutdown

XL Foods was temporarily closed on September 27, 2012, by order of the

Canadian Food Inspection Agency The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA; french: Agence canadienne d'inspection des aliments) is a regulatory agency that is dedicated to the safeguarding of food, plants, and animals (FPA) in Canada, thus enhancing the health and well-being o ...

(CFIA) due to ''Escherichia coli'' O157:H7 being discovered in processed meat originating from the plant. The plant was testing incorrectly for ''E. coli'' in meat, so the testing procedures were made more stringent. The plant was processing between 2000 and 5000 cattle per day, representing approximately one-third of Canada's 2012 beef slaughtering capacity. According to American regulators and the CFIA, testing practices in place at the plant were not stringent enough to protect consumers from the ''E. coli'' contamination. The incident was also linked to increased production at the plant during the time when the ''E. coli'' was detected. A total of 18 confirmed cases of infection with ''E. coli'' O157:H7 were reported during the subsequent outbreak linked to XL Foods. On October 18, 2012, it was announced that the XL Lakeside plant was to be taken over by

JBS USA JBS USA Holdings, Inc. is an American food processing company and a wholly owned subsidiary of the multinational company JBS S.A. The subsidiary was created when JBS entered the U.S. market in 2007 with its purchase of Swift & Company. JBS speci ...

for 60 days with "an exclusive option to buy the Canadian and U.S. operations of XL Foods". With the XL Foods recall, some experts like

Sylvain Charlebois Sylvain Charlebois is a Canadian researcher and professor in food distribution and food policy at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He is Dalhousie's former Dean of the Faculty of Management. He is currently the Director of t ...

claimed that the XL Foods incident is an example of how a dysfunctional food safety culture can affect an organization. The Brooks plant was sold to JBS Canada on January 14, 2013.

References

Companies based in Alberta Meat companies of Canada Brooks, Alberta County of Newell Food and drink companies based in Alberta {{Canada-company-stub