Coronavirus/Covid-19 – Biosecurity Update
The Orchard Organisation recognise the importance of robust biosecurity procedures to protect our customers, people that work with us, our employees and the population in general.
In the event of a pathogenic disease that has wide-ranging and serious implications, we will take some or all of the following measures. For clarity this includes UK epidemics and international pandemics:
- We will purchase from suppliers that either have no risk, or a reduced risk of supplying products that could be affected and could impact availability and safety.
- We will use distribution and storage partners that either have no risk, or a reduced risk of impacting availability and safety.
- We will prohibit all travel to areas that are affected by pathogenic disease.
- We will use social distancing measures to ensure that our staff are protected from becoming infected, these include:
- Requiring all staff to follow any government guidelines.
- Segregation of staff by home working.
- We will close our office to ALL visitors. This includes customers, suppliers, regulatory authorities and auditing organisations.
We have business continuity procedures in place to ensure that our ability to trade and maintain supplies to our client base during this eventuality is unaffected; these include:
- Operating a paperless office.
- Remote working available for all staff.
- Data backed up to a secondary remote and secure server and accessible by staff working remotely.
- Video and telephone conferencing facilities.
Any restrictions introduced will be removed or relaxed as the risks diminish.
Adrian Else
Managing Director
24/03/2020
