Business South October 2020

26 | DAIRY INDUSTRY Oceania Dairy Oceania keeps on trucking in crisis Richard Loader H aving the foresight of preparation paid dividends for Oceania Dairy, as the threat of Covid-19 took hold and the likelihood of lockdown became reality. Located near Glenavy, on the boundary of South Canterbury and North Otago, Oceania Dairy is a highly sophisticated operation utilis- ing state-of-the-art technology. Employing more than 400 people, Oce- ania Dairy uses raw milk sourced from local farmers to produce infant formula, nutritional powders and long life UHT products. With plans already in place in the event of a pandemic, and most team members living in Oamaru or Timaru, Oceania made the call that “We had some trials in place to test our systems for those people working from home but in the end we just went to the live scenario. The office work carried on seamlessly — but at home.” Peter Whale - Managing Director | 027 289 3076 | peter.whale@spraytechnologies.co.nz Clinton Prince - Business Development Manager | 027 289 3014 | clinton.prince@spraytechnologies.co.nz Spray Technologies www.spraytechnologies.co.nz Spray Technologies Ltd is a New Zealand owned and based company that exclusively distributes DELAVAN® industrial spray products throughout Australasia. DELAVAN® is, and has been a world leader in the engineering of spray nozzle since 1935. With a wide variety of high-end nozzles, adaptors, & accessories; Spray Technologies Ltd can fulfil any industrial spraying need you may have. · High quality product - The SDX 5 assembly nozzle is our flagship Spray Drying Nozzle · Excellent technical service & support, second to none · Customisation is available to suit any application to page 28 once community transmission hit Dunedin and/or Christchurch those plans would be enacted including its own lockdown to ensure the seamless continuity of operation. Team members who could operate from home were identified and provided with tech- nology including access to hard drives and MS Teams to facilitate communications. A handful of team members in a high risk category—either because of age, their health or a family member’s health—were able to work from home with a couple placed on annual leave. With PPE equipment in short supply there was a worldwide scramble to source suitable equip- ment, including full-face shields, for all workers. Through the magic of the procurement team sufficient supplies of PPE were sourced over a two-week period. For the majority of team members who were required to maintain operation of the plant, measures were put in place to ensure their continued safety including on-site health screening tests, physical barriers and 2-metre social distancing. “No one had ever been through this before and we were adapting what we did and how we did it as we went along,” says Richard Hick- son, Oceania’s General Manager at the time. “Our advantage was that the management team were all on site and able to make deci- sions as we went,” he says.