Maple Leaf Foods is one of the largest Canadian protein companies with 27 manufacturing facilities ranging from fresh pork and fresh poultry to prepared meats and further processed poultry to plant-based protein. As the world's first major carbon-neutral food company, we are motivated to strive for leadership in sustainability practices. Through collaboration with functional stakeholders and external experts, we are excited to share our journey toward a sanitation process that is executed in a more sustainable way. Our sanitation strategy, deeply rooted in performance, was a key enabler to the development of the two core sustainability concepts discussed in this article: asset care and reduced hot water usage. The purpose of this article is to share insights and tips so that all sectors of the food industry that perform wet sanitation can benefit from our experiences in developing a sanitation process that is effective, efficient, maintains assets, and utilizes resources in a more sustainable manner.

The journey began in 2019 with the approval of a sanitation strategy that defined a performance improvement roadmap to standardize programs and practices across the network of plants performing wet sanitation. Today, Maple Leaf Foods has achieved a more than 80 percent improvement in sanitation performance when compared to baseline, with many plants achieving sanitation performance that is stable and predictable. Knowing what "good looks like" provides a clear reference point to measure the impact of any modifications to the program. This is a very important point, as any change to the sanitation process regarding asset care or improved sustainability must not negatively impact either sanitation effectiveness or the efficiency to perform the sanitation process.