Ready for peak milk

With around 80 million litres of milk being processed daily from last week, chief operating officer Fraser Whineray says procedures and precautions are in place to keep operating and processing milk.

The co-op's global incident team has been activated: headed from Auckland by chief executive Miles Hurrell, Mark Cronin, Helen Moore and Whineray. A technical response team, comprising key staff from all over the world, is working with them.

Whineray told Dairy News that he was pleased with the way things are going.

"We are making sure all parts of our business are prepared - right from our 1600 tanker drivers to lab technicians who test the milk to our manufacturing staff," he says.

"All this has to work in harmonious choreography."

More strict procedures are enforced in the North Island, with all staff working at a level above what is mandated by the Government, with shift bubbles, full PPE gear and temperature testing.

There is no contact among staff and seating in cafeterias is limited. Access to manufacturing sites is limited to essential workers.

"Even I cannot go to a site unless it is absolutely necessary; we are allowing only essential workers on site," says Whineray.

Fonterra is also prepared to deal with any Covid outbreak among factory staff.

Since the first Covid-19 outbreak last year the teams have been refining their business continuity plans and have held practice runs of what to do if there is an infected person on site.

It has deep clean kits on each plant and select cleaning crews have been identified. Cleaning trials that take a few hours have been undertaken, with the plant ready to be up and running again shortly after that.

Whineray says saliva testing provisions are in place to rapidly test staff if necessary.

He says the peak milk period is crucial and Fonterra is well prepared to process all milk arriving at the factories.

Whineray says it's hard to say when the co-operative will hit peak milk however it would be different for each region, depending on temperature and rainfall.

Once peak milk begins to subsidise in the coming weeks, more options open for the co-op, including moving milk around factories in each region.

Right now all plants are processing to capacity.

Watching Govt on Vaccination

Fonterra says it is watching closely the Government's move on mandatory vaccinations for workers.

"We are staying close to it," chief operating officer Fraser Whineray told Dairy News.

While Whineray says not all Fonterra workers are vaccinated, it has been working hard to provide opportunity for staff to get the jabs.

The co-operative recently ran vaccination centres at 17 sites and about 7500 staff got their jabs, he says.

Some workers also received their jabs at other vaccination centres over the months.

Whineray says Fonterra has been working closely with the NZ Dairy Workers Union on its Covid response.