Food and agribusinesses to be commended during difficult times
From Bruce McConnel, TSBE General Manager Food Leaders Australia:
During this time of difficulty with COVID-19 looming, Australia’s food and agriculture businesses have absolutely jumped to the challenge to make sure they are getting as much food as possible into the hands of people that need it. One of the first trends that we saw in the sector was people needing to change their business models to offer food delivery to households, with produce being moved away from high end restaurants, as people couldn’t go out for a meal and restrictions were tightened. The speed of which our region’s food producers were able to do that was absolutely outstanding, which mean they have been able to capture opportunities during this period of time and see their businesses continue to hold staff and create economic growth for our region.
We are now seeing that the panic buying of products off the shelf is starting to slow down, and export markets are now opening back up again. So now, the food businesses are needing to pivot back to traditional export markets or markets they haven’t seen before, and again, they are doing that in an incredibly rapid way.
The team at Toowoomba and Surat Basin Enterprise are proud to be helping these businesses find those opportunities and, in particular, advocate for what they need to make sure they can access those markets as quickly as possible. That means getting air freight capability out of Wellcamp Airport to get our regions’ food into these opening export markets and not having that export capability exclusively in the capital airports.
One of the greatest threats we have to our food production in our region right now is the possibility of having COVID-19 in the workplace of those producing our food. So, we continue to ask our food producers to make sure they have contingency plans in place to ensure they have an active workforce, even if one staff member returns with a positive reading. For example, are you ensuring clear separation shifts, are you isolating different groups and individuals when they are in your facility, do you have a workforce on standby if required? Are you following industry mandated processes?
We do not want to see our food businesses shut down, and in particular our animal based businesses. We can’t afford to lower our animal welfare standards if the virus hits the ag sector workforce. It’s vital that businesses either create or review their contingency plans to make sure they are well prepared for any situation.
If you would like any assistance through this period, please don’t hesitate to give the TSBE office a call to speak to our industry specialists.
P 07 4639 4600
