Harraways feeding demand
FOOD is always a good business to be in, Harraways chief executive Henry Hawkins says.
Just two months into the job and the oats company boss could not have been more correct.
It has been a real baptism of fire for Mr Hawkins, who said he was grateful to his hardworking, flexible staff in a time where production has increased to as much as four times the factory’s usual output.
‘‘. . . I’ve been through cyclones, I’ve been through tsunami warnings, I’ve been through earthquakes . . . I’ve seen quite a few things but nothing that’s sort of matched the level of shutdown around you — and probably the high levels of orders and production that we saw happen within a onemonth period.’’
It all happened very quickly leading into the lockdown, Mr Hawkins said.
The company had increased production in anticipation of winter, but demand started to skyrocket as the Covid19 situation became more serious and eventually led to the Alert Level 4 lockdown.
‘‘You just go with it and try and achieve what’s required.
‘‘The staff were key to that — they just got stuck in and got the job done,’’ Mr Hawkins said.
Usually the 800850g paper bag of oats was the leading product, but a move towards baking and stockpiling changed that.
‘‘What we saw was a massive shift to the 1.5kg bags that we sell . . . sort of a bulk bag in the supermarket shelf,’’ the Harraways chief said.
‘‘That dovetailed into what we were hearing: people were buying more bulkier bags for either pantry storage or a lot for baking — there’s a lot of baking going on with our product.’’
The factory moved to operating 24 hours a day, with half a day break on Sunday for maintenance.
‘‘But that was also under the proviso we were following the MPI [Ministry for Primary Industries] and Covid19 requirements, which [were for] social distancing,’’ Mr Hawkins said.
That meant they had to keep staff separated in the production line and then keep them isolated in small groups for morning teas and shift changes, and ensuring they were not changing into their working clothes at the same time.
MPI carried out an essential service audit on the factory and it passed with ‘‘flying colours,’’ Mr Hawkins said.
They had also managed to offer jobs to some in the area.
‘‘Obviously there’s some unfortunate people and families out there and so we were able to scout around through our current staff and find some extra part time workers to help on packing or simple operations.’’
Farmers supplying the factory were ‘‘loving to see the increases coming through’’ in demand, Mr Hawkins said.
He said logistics company Toll had coped well with their demand for deliveries, he said.
‘‘They were able to ramp up very quickly . . . We managed between us very well.’’