Maple Leaf Foods

Maple Leaf Foods has a strong culture of caring and responsible behaviour, and we ensure our people have the training required to understand their personal accountability. Our Agri-Farms hog production operation offers a wide range of career options as a fully integrated hog production system, with feed mills that provide the feed for our barns, our own fleet of livestock and feed trucks, and technical services in areas such as animal health, welfare and nutrition, and quality control. We are proud to be a leader in transitioning our sows into open housing. We are industry leaders in producing hogs raised without the use of antibiotics.

Our Poultry Operation is a market leader in providing high-quality, nutritious chicken to Canadians under a number of brands. Our hatcheries are focused on the biological needs of the birds and our team works to develop, implement and review the programs and processes to maintain our role as an industry leader. We look for people who have the technical and leadership skill sets – from industry, farms and hatcheries – to join our team and help grow this important part of our business.

• Strategy – We lead and guide Maple Leaf Foods’ strategic planning process by working with leaders throughout the business to explore, identify, analyze and plan the execution of high-impact business opportunities.
• Communications and Public Affairs – We create a clear and authentic voice for the company by sharing information and creating dialogue through interactions with the general public, investors, media and our people.
• Sustainability – We lead Maple Leaf Foods’ commitment to creating sustainable value by addressing social and environmental needs in four priority areas: advancing nutrition and health, eliminating waste, valuing our people and communities, and treating animals well.
• Industry and Government Relations – We work with government and industry partners on matters of public policy, programs, regulatory affairs and trade.
• Corporate Secretary, Legal Affairs and Real Estate – We manage corporate responsibilities, including corporate secretarial, Board of Directors affairs, legal affairs, insurance, real estate, and mergers and acquisitions transactions.
• Taxation – We work with external advisors and business leaders to ensure effective management of tax requirements and accurate disclosure of tax-related activity.

Here at Maple Leaf Foods, we value a long-term, sustainable and successful approach to business growth. Career development in finance takes the same path.

We nurture development, support our people as they work towards professional qualifications and beyond, and help them acquire new business experience, while they build their analytical, technical and leadership skills.

The Finance team is a critical enabler of Maple Leaf Foods’ profitable growth. We have a unified team, with clear areas of expertise that are mutually supportive and enhance our ability to create value. We have organized Finance into two primary areas of focus:

• Provide analysis, insights and tracking to drive business results.
• Provide efficient, high-quality services and reporting to run our business.

Within this broad framework, our Finance function is organized into five groups: Investor Relations, Financial Reporting and Services, Business Finance and Planning and Analysis, Internal Audit and Compliance, and Treasury. These groups are led by a strong Senior Finance Leadership team with collective experience, knowledge and financial expertise who promote continuous development and progression across the entire finance organization.

The Finance team is united in its approach to partnering with colleagues, both within Finance and within Maple Leaf Foods’ business areas, to build focused and high-impact teams and elevate the value they deliver to the business.

We are Maple Leaf Foods’ experts on food safety, quality and technical services across all Maple Leaf Foods businesses. We are committed to the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) standards and use the British Retail Consortium (BRC) certification scheme as our standard. We ensure that we deliver on our Food Safety Promise and quality commitments.

Achieving this calls for a superb team with a diverse range of skills, from microbiology to people management to comprehensive food safety and quality training. This team is organized into three areas:

• Food Safety – From developing new products to shipping products to our customers, our team of experts works to eliminate food safety risks within our production facilities.
• Quality Assurance – We feel strongly that all Maple Leaf Foods products have great attributes that consumers love. Ensuring we meet all necessary product specifications is the job of our quality team.We rely on process capability studies, statistical analysis and leading product development processes.
• Technical Services – Our Technical Services team operates in Standards Council of Canada (SCC) accredited labs. Product samples are analyzed daily and data is reviewed to make certain we meet our product commitments and drive continuous improvement.

To help build the workforce we need, the Maple Leaf Foods HR team focuses their attention on four core elements:

• A strong values culture which defines the ‘Maple Leaf Foods Way’ of doing business.
• Superior people leaders who provide clear direction, feedback and coaching.
• Highly engaged people who wholeheartedly contribute to company success.
• A deep talent base through targeted hiring, development, and career planning.

Everything our team does is truly ‘made in Canada’. Whether it’s a talent-management approach, a labour mandate or anything in between, we are the ones who assess needs, figure out solutions and put them into practice. This means we need HR professionals who always identify needs and new trends, are confident to raise issues, and work in collaborative teams to find and implement solutions. This takes strong collaboration, flexibility, communication and problem-solving skills.

Our HR team includes:

• Generalists who are embedded into the business – in our plants, distribution centres and offices – working with functional and people leaders to make sure we have the people we need.
• Specialists who use their expert knowledge to create practical, high-impact solutions to fit our business needs – working with our HR generalists and functional and people leaders.

We have had great success in moving people through generalist and specialist roles, as well as plant-based and office-based roles, and giving experience through special projects. If you join our team, we will work with you to find the right challenging experiences, and we will offer learning and development to help you meet your personal and career goals. You can forge your own HR career path here – it’s not one size fits all.

As part of the Information Solutions team, you will be fueled by a passion for technology and a desire to build, deploy and maintain world-class systems. Embracing emerging technology and process leadership are important, as our people work collaboratively with cross-functional business teams and vendors to optimize value for the organization. Our priority areas include:

• Technology investment (SAP) – We are sought-out as best-in-class globally for our SAP system. We leverage SAP technology to empower our people to make fact-based decisions
• Reinvestment into company and innovation – Innovation is vital to our company and you are encouraged to think creatively
• Cross-functional development

If you are an information technology professional looking for a challenging opportunity, take your career to the next level by joining the Maple Leaf Foods team!

Our goal is to make great tasting, high-quality food in the most efficient way possible, every day. This opens a range of opportunities in designing world-class production facilities, maintaining high standards, increasing production through-put rates, introducing new technology, reducing waste, and engaging and sourcing ideas from our employees across many manufacturing locations.

We contribute to making Maple Leaf Foods a food manufacturing leader by:

• Providing a safe work environment
• Producing good quality, affordable, nutritious products
• Using world-class technology supported by high-skilled positions

Benefiting from leading technology, standardized processes and experienced employees, you will gain extensive knowledge and mentorship in each area that you work in. Cross-functional training is key in your development and career progression. The areas in which you can gain experience are diverse, including food production, quality assurance, engineering, maintenance and sanitation.

If you are looking to propel your career in a company that believes in innovation, quality and safety, then joining our team is the right move for you!

Our Marketing team champions the creation and innovation of our leading product lines and provides strategic leadership and business planning expertise. The team is the sole architect of our brand and category strategies; they incorporate market analytics, consumer insights and industry trends to drive customer excitement, new product development and growth for the organization.

Immersion in Maple Leaf Foods’ Marketing department will provide you with the opportunity to experience the core elements of the discipline, including brand and customer strategy development, category management, consumer insights and analytics, integrated communications and commercial campaign launches.

The Sales teams at Maple Leaf Foods create value for our customers. They build trust-based business relationships with our external customers, and work in partnership with them to create mutually beneficial volume and profitability strategies. Our Sales teams represent the largest functional salaried group at Maple Leaf Foods, working in tandem with Marketing to enable the sale of our products domestically and internationally.

As a Maple Leaf Foods Sales employee, you will learn how to excel at developing powerful customer relationships, using the latest market data to support objective decision making, drive sales and increase profit margins. Through cross-functional project exposure, you will learn how all business functions interact to serve our customers.

Encompassing change management, project management and structured problem solving, Six Sigma is used in various ways at Maple Leaf Foods: from executing large-scale initiatives (such as post-acquisition integrations) to solving day-to-day business challenges (such as improving line efficiencies within our production facilities).

The Black Belt role is the most common point of entry into Six Sigma at Maple Leaf Foods. Six Sigma Black Belts are full-time change leaders who deliver results by integrating Six Sigma and functional knowledge with an ability to execute. We have a comprehensive Black Belt Certification program to ensure our Black Belts have the training, support and coaching required to advance their careers. Your career path in this function can progress through a number of increasingly challenging roles, which may include:

• Leading initiatives of greater size, risk, complexity, ambiguity and visibility
• Managing business relationships with, and coaching of, senior leaders
• Developing Six Sigma capability in all employees and establishing relationships across all functions
• Assuming accountability for the problem-solving quality of a portfolio of Black Belt projects (Director role and above)
• Having the option to directly manage and develop a team of Six Sigma people (Director role and above)

The diversity of work and the pace of learning are truly unique in the Black Belt role. Through affecting change, leading projects and coaching the business, every day brings a different set of challenges and opportunities to grow. Many of our Six Sigma alumni progress their career into the business – from manufacturing and supply chain to marketing and sales.

A career within Maple Leaf Foods Six Sigma can be the professional learning experience of a lifetime..