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Maple Leaf Foods PR:

Maple Leaf Closes Brockley Road, Hamilton Plant
Completes Production Transfer to New Scale Hamilton Facility

TORONTO, April 17, 2014 /CNW/ - Maple Leaf Foods Inc. (MFI: TSX) ("Maple Leaf" or the "Company") today announced that it has closed its wiener production facility on Brockley Road, Hamilton and transferred production to its new prepared meats facility in Hamilton.

"We are in the final phase of completing a transformation of our prepared meats network," said Michael H. McCain, President and CEO. "We have established world-class facilities and technologies to step-change our profitability and competitiveness. This year, the focus is on shifting production to these new facilities, closing legacy plants, and realizing related cost and productivity gains. We are doing this in a way that is respectful of our people and provides them ongoing employment opportunities wherever possible. A low-cost, highly efficient network will provide a strong platform for growth and support Canada's broader agrifood sector."

Maple Leaf has produced wieners at the leased Brockley Road plant since 1994. Approximately 88 per cent of the plant's workforce of 213 people has been provided employment at the new Heritage facility in Hamilton. The new jobs provide these people with opportunities to advance their skills in a high technology environment.

To date, the commissioning of the Heritage facility has been successful and on schedule. The Company is focused on transferring production from four other plants over the remainder of 2014, which will subsequently close, and continuing to ramp up both wiener and sliced meats production at the new facility. It will be among the largest and most technologically advantaged plants of its kind in North America.

Maple Leaf Foods Inc. is a leading food processing company, headquartered in Toronto, Canada. The Company employs approximately 18,000 people at its operations across Canada and in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Asia. The Company had sales of $4.4 billion in 2013.