Meat packaging company Maple Leaf Foods (MFI.TO) posted a first-quarter profit that missed estimates, as lower prices and a temporary supply interruption hurt sales of its pork products, offsetting higher sales in prepared meats business.

Shares fell more than 12 per cent at the market open on Wednesday. 

The company, one of Canada's biggest pork processors, said that sales in value-added fresh pork were affected by a transitory reduction in hog supply from Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus in 2017.

One of the company's barns in Manitoba, Canada's biggest piglet-producing province, was among the confirmed cases of the pig disease in June last year.

The Canadian company said that market conditions in pork markets in the first quarter were materially below prior year, offsetting strong performance in its other segments.

The company's net earnings fell to $27.9 million, or 22 cents per share, in the first quarter ended March 31, from $30.1 million, or 22 cents per share, a year earlier.

Excluding items, the company earned 29 cents per share, missing analysts' average estimate of 34 Canadian cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Maple Leaf said sales rose to $817.5 million from $811.2 million.

-- With files from BNN