Maple Leaf Foods moving to cut 300 to 400 jobs: sources

By Euan Rocha and Rod Nickel TORONTO/WINNIPEG (Reuters) - Canadian meat packager Maple Leaf Foods is cutting some 300 to 400 jobs, mainly at the corporate level, after pushing back its timeline for hitting a key profitability target last month, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The company, which is near the end of a major restructuring plan, is looking to extract further savings, said the sources, who were not publicly authorized to discuss the matter. The company could not be reached immediately for comment. Maple Leaf, one of Canada's biggest pork processors, rolled out a program in 2010 to boost earnings by shutting some plants and modernizing others. It has also shed some of its assets in a move to focus on its meat business. Last year, it sold its bakery unit, Canada Bread to Mexico's Grupo Bimbo for C$1.83 billion ($1.38 billion) in cash. The new round of cuts come less than a month after Maple Leaf disappointed investors by delaying into 2016 its target for increasing earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization as a percentage of revenue to 10 percent. It had earlier said it planned to meet that target in 2015. (Reporting by Euan Rocha and Rod Nickel)