Aurivo has introduced “strict” Covid-19 protocols in relation to the collection of milk from farms.
Today, Wednesday, April 1, the co-op communicated best practice advice to all its milk suppliers to “protect the health and safety of all suppliers, employees and contractors”.
“This will focus on minimising person-to-person contact. All Aurivo personnel entering farms have been instructed to follow strict hygiene procedures,” Aurivo said in a statement.
The protocols:
- If you, a member of your family or farm staff are experiencing symptoms of Covid-19, please follow the guidelines outlined by the Health Service Executive (HSE). Please also inform your milk advisor, branch manager or farm commercial specialist if there is a suspected or confirmed case of Covid-19 affecting your farm immediately;
- Please ensure that all surfaces that the lorry driver will touch are regularly disinfected. The surfaces should be cleaned before milk is due to be collected. Please also provide hand-washing facilities, soap and paper towels for milk hauliers;
- If you need to send samples to the lab, please leave samples for the milk hauliers to collect. Do not travel to the milk processing sites in Killygordon, Co. Donegal, or Ballaghaderreen, Co. Roscommon. All samples must be clean and correctly labelled;
- To minimise person-to-person contact, do not approach the milk hauliers during milk collection;
- All farmers are required to have a set of instructions in place on how to operate the milking machine and milk tank in the event of falling ill from Covid-19. Please inform your milk advisor if you require support on developing these materials.
Aurivo stressed that, if a supplier becomes ill with Covid-19, or the farm is affected in some way by a case of Covid-19, this “will be treated in the absolute strictest of confidence and measures will be implemented to continue to collect milk or make deliveries to/from your farm”.
“Aurivo remains committed to business continuity and the provision of services while adhering to all public health guidelines to protect our employees, members and customers,” the co-op highlighted.
Aurivo is providing updates on its Covid-19-related measures on its website here.