Ensuring food availability during the COVID-19 pandemic
DeLaval has had a key role in ensuring food availability during the pandemic by maintaining business continuity, and securing its supply chains and deliveries to farmers to allow them to continue their dairy operations. We look at the experiences of two countries – Poland and China.
Securing business continuity in Poland
With four factories employing over 400 employees, Poland is an essential country for DeLaval to maintain production and ensure employee well-being. Procedures during the pandemic included separating different shifts, enhancing cleaning procedures, social distancing and mask wearing.
“We avoided COVID-19 outbreaks and closures at our factories in 2020, with only 17 cases in total identified among our entire workforce,” says Katarzynska Dzusajew, Factory Manager at DeLaval’s detergent factory in Wrocław. “This has maintained production and deliveries to our customers – in fact our factory set an output record in 2020 despite the pandemic.”
Maintaining supply chains in China
The entire food industry in China was disrupted by COVID-19 in early 2020, but the situation was quickly brought under control. DeLaval worked actively to minimise disruption to its supply chain and customer deliveries.
“We created procedures to deal with the pandemic together with support from DeLaval Group Management,” explains June Wang, Vice President Supply Chain Asia-Pacific. “We shared good practice internally, and asked our suppliers early on in the pandemic to prioritise us due to our importance in supplying the dairy industry.”
“I am proud that we have enabled our customers and farmers to continue their business during the pandemic, which contributed to food availability in society,” says Wang.