Ishida Europe (United Kingdom) - Press Release: Covid-19 Business Situation Update 27th March 2020.

The Covid-19 situation continues and in some ways has intensified within the west. Ishida remains committed to acting in a responsible manner ensuring a ‘duty of care’ to our people, our customers and our communities. In these unprecedented times dependable food production is obviously fundamental, we fully appreciate that Ishida has a role to play in supporting all of our customer operations.

Ishida is a financially strong company with the means to invest in new technologies, working methods, and support our employees while we all work through these difficult times. We have developed alternative ways of working in support of our customers in their time of need. Amongst the measures implemented is equipping all our office employees with the means to work from home, so, should you need a regular contact they will be responding to emails and telephone calls.

The production, spares stores, and PDI (pre-delivery inspection) areas, remain operational as we have employed smaller multiple shift systems. This way we continue to build machines and provide parts, delivering on commitments to our customers but also provide safe distance between employees.

We continue to monitor our supply chain which has some disruption, but by taking advantage of our dual sourcing programme and global supplier networks we are investigating every avenue to maintain continuity of supply.

The service helpdesk also remains operational through the deployment of technology which enables remote working and we continue to schedule critical service visits. Travel across countries from the UK is all but possible. However, Ishida’s extensive local service networks enable us to continue to provide customers with support through this difficult time.

As the continual provision of food is vital across the world. The fact that Ishida play a key part in the food supply chain has been recognised by the UK Government, and as such we are a key worker sector company with permission to work and travel in support of customers during the lockdown.

Of the overseas offices, France, RSA, and now Dubai, have had to close due to a government total shut down. Germany, Holland, Sweden, Czech, Russia, and Kenya are able to go into the office as long as they observe distancing restrictions between employees. Should you be in need of one of our sales team, they are all responding to their normal phone and email contact details. 

The sales teams continue to work remotely but as meeting and visits are banned by almost all companies, customer contact is mostly by phone or email.