SPC to make Covid-19 vaccinations mandatory for all staff, visitors

Fruit and vegetable processor SPC has become the first Australian firm outside healthcare to demand its staff be vaccinated.

SPC chairman Hussein Rifai in Sydney on Wednesday: ‘It’s not a matter of opinion. This is science. Vaccines work.’ Picture: Ryan Osland

Fruit and vegetable processor SPC has become the first Australian company outside of healthcare to mandate Covid-19 vaccines for not only its staff but anyone who enters its cannery – in an effort to eradicate lockdowns and catapult the country to some kind of normality.

As the highly infectious Delta variant rampages through Australia’s biggest city and threatens a widespread outbreak in Queensland, SPC has given its staff and contractors six weeks to schedule their first vaccine dose or otherwise be barred from coming to work.

Any visitor to SPC’s cannery at Shepparton in central Victoria must also prove that they are vaccinated.

“All we have done is align with the objective of our nation and we’ll continue to do that. We make no apologies for wanting to protect our staff, our employees, our communities and our customers,” SPC chairman Hussein Rifai said.

“We’ve taken very strong safety precautions when the pandemic first happened, in terms of what we do in the plant, who goes in and who goes out and how we control it. But with the Delta-variant it’s the next level up.”

The SPC factory at Shepparton. Picture: Zoe Phillips

Other companies have been mulling mandatory inoculations, with Qantas last week calling for jabs to be compulsory across all aviation workers but they have yet to take the bold step of SPC, which has operated a cannery for the past 100 years.

SPC’s action is in line with tech behemoth Microsoft, which on Tuesday night announced it would delaying the reopening of its US offices by a month and require proof of vaccination for all its employees.

The decision comes as Sydney recorded another 233 coronavirus infections on Wednesday and added a staggering 174 exposure sites to its alert list, which featured several Bunnings stores, The Reject Shop and other retail outlets.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said lockdowns will continue to be needed until 70 per cent of Australians are vaccinated against Covid-19 – a target, which seems a long way off, given 15.5 per cent of the country is currently fully immunised.

“We cannot continue to shut down this economy, every second. It‘s just not going to work, because we will all as a country go broke,” Mr Rifai said.

“For us to get out of it – every single expert that I‘ve heard whether it’s in Australia or overseas, and some of those countries have started to open up – we have to get vaccinated. We have to get to a certain level where we can afford, as a country, to live with that virus and control its spread.”

SPC is looking to protect its workforce. Picture: Jason Edwards

Mr Rifai said it was vital SPC workers were vaccinated, given they produced an essential food service – with its products such as canned back beans, spaghetti, fruit and vegetables being the target of panic buying during previous lockdowns.

“We are an essential service just like the police is an essential service and the aged care centres.

“We don‘t know what the hell is after Delta – Gamma, or whatever it is – we don’t know whether that’s going to be transmissible more or less.

“We don‘t know whether it can be transmitted to products or to anything else. So that’s one thing that we have to not wait for. We need to take pre-emptive measures for it to never happen. We honestly saw very little other options but to take this step (require mandatory vaccinations).”

Mr Rifai said the government releasing AstraZeneca vaccine for anybody aged over 18 years last month prompted the SPC to introduce mandatory immunisation.

The government has ordered more than 50 million doses of the AstraZeneca jab – most of which is being produced by CSL in Melbourne. But take-up has been low, particularly among those aged over 50 after the vaccine was linked to rare blood clots.

As a food producer, SPC is an essential service. Picture: Jason Edwards

But Mr Rifai said he has taken the AstraZeneca vaccine, as has his wife and mother-in-law, with his three children – aged 21, 21 and 25 – booked in to receive the jab.

“For me the whole AstraZeneca thing was much ado about nothing,” Mr Rifai said.

“The risk is one per million. The science also says to me that risk is prevalent in just about a multitude of things that we do in our life. People still die with a seatbelt on, so do we stop driving cars?

“It’s not a matter of opinion. This is science. Vaccines work.”

Mr Rifai said all SPC staff will be “offered compensation via paid time off” to receive their vaccinations, as well as special paid leave of up to 2 days for any staff who may become unwell after vaccination.

“For those with a pre-existing condition and are unable to receive the vaccine their circumstances will be considered on a case-by-case basis,” he said.

Coca-Cola Amatil sold SPC – which at the time was loss-making, relying on several government bailouts – to Mr Rifai’s Perpetuity Capital and The Eights for $40m in mid 2019. This was a fraction of the $700m Coca-Cola Amatil paid for the fruit and vegetable processor in 2005.

Under the new ownership, SPC posted earnings before depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of $45.6m last year from revenue of $284.1m. This compares with a $13m loss two years ago. It has since expanded into frozen prepared meals and spent $20m in upgrading its information technology systems.