YOUR INDUSTRY
The “super slick” washbasin set-ups at Trevelyan’s means staff can wash and dry their hands in a one-way system where two-metre distances are maintained (photo supplied)
Good planning key to response When one of his staff told James Trevelyan of the fears she had for her family in China because of Covid-19 coronavirus, James began researching the disease and its likely arrival in New Zealand. By Elaine Fisher That was late last year, well before this country implemented an official Covid-19 response. It was his experience of another nasty disease which heightened James’s instincts. “I remember in August 2010, listening to Zespri chief executive Lain Jager talking about the kiwifruit vine disease Psa-V in Italy and thinking, thank goodness we don’t have it here. By November it had been found in a Te Puke orchard. When you have been through something like that your eyes are opened wider to other threats,” says James who is managing director of Te Puke horticultural and post-harvest company Trevelyan’s. Psa-V proved deadly to the lucrative gold variety Hort16A, and for a time, brought into question the future of the kiwifruit industry. In the end its saviour was found in the new gold variety G3 which proved tolerant of the disease. Ahead of the 2020 harvest season, with another overseas threat looming, James began internet research, finding reports from a Japanese journalist in Wuhan about what was happening in the city at the centre of the Covid-19 disease outbreak. “I also contacted friends in Italy who said things were really tough there. I have a cousin in London who told me of people in her street infected with Covid-19 and the father of a friend who had died.”
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The ORCHARDIST : AUGUST 2020
Following those discussions James decided to put Covid-19 at the top of the capacity planning list for the upcoming kiwifruit harvest. “A medical colleague predicted it might reach New Zealand by August, but it came much faster.” Before the New Zealand government implemented its first Level 2 restrictions in March, the team at Trevelyan’s had already done a lot of preparation. By Level 2, the company’s cleaning team had tripled in size and yellow and black tape was everywhere in the packhouses, setting out one-metre distances. “Then we went to Level 4 and two-metre distances, which was a big step. We had two Covid-19 teams, each with four people to monitor the protocols and documentation for the day and night shifts.” Staff had temperatures taken every time they arrived at work. In the packhouses staff were allocated to specific ‘zones’ which were the only ones within which they could move. Shift times were staggered, and special handwashing areas set up. “We were losing ten minutes a shift with people handwashing, so had the facilities for two sheds rejigged. Now we have super slick washbasin set-ups. People clock in, soap, wash and dry their hands, walking through a one-way system which is screened so they do not pass one another, and two-metre distances are maintained.
