Maple Leaf Appoints Stephen Graham to New Role of Chief Marketing Officer

TSX: MFI
    www.mapleleaf.com
    

TORONTO , Nov. 9 /CNW/ - Maple Leaf Foods (MFI: TSX) today announced the appointment of Stephen Graham to the new position of Chief Marketing Officer, effective January 11th, 2010 . In this capacity, Stephen will be responsible for providing executive leadership for marketing programs across Maple Leaf Foods, including the building of strong brands and innovation strategies that will help drive the Company's growth as a leader in consumer packaged foods.

"I am very pleased that Stephen has agreed to join Maple Leaf in this new high-impact executive role," said Michael H. McCain, President and CEO. "We are focused on accelerating our growth in product innovation and marketing that builds upon our leading brands and market shares, supports our customers, and delivers a stream of exciting new products for consumers. Together with our strong marketing teams across our business units, Stephen brings the depth of experience, a track record of success and the industry leadership to help us drive future business results in Canada and beyond."

Stephen is a widely recognized and awarded marketing executive, in both Canada and the U.S., who has consistently generated exceptional top line and bottom line results in tier one companies. His international experience in transforming companies into customer driven, growth focused organizations is well documented. Stephen began his career at Procter & Gamble where he helped them rapidly grow a number of their personal care brands. Recruited to Coca-Cola during the cola wars, he led the successful repositioning of the Coca-Cola brand, growing brand awareness and corporate market shares to record levels. As President of a leading Agency, which was selected as Agency of the Year, and through his consulting company, he has advised some of the world's leading consumer companies on corporate strategic planning, major marketing and sales growth initiatives. He has also held executive marketing positions at Rogers, CIBC and AT&T in the U.S., where he was ranked No.1 by Advertising Age in their Power 50 selection of top global marketers.

Maple Leaf Foods Inc. is a leading food processing company, headquartered in Toronto , Canada . The Company employs approximately 24,000 people at its operations across Canada and in the United States , the United Kingdom , and Asia. The Company had sales of $5.2 billion in 2008.

For further information: Lynda Kuhn, Senior Vice President Communications, [phone]