As of noon, two Lactalis employees in Turkey and their families were still missing after the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck the country and neighboring Syria on Monday.
The plant in question is located an hour’s drive from Gaziantep. It is home to 150 employees of Lactalis, which has become a leader in milk in Turkey, having acquired the first local group, AK Gida, in the spring of 2015. Lactalis operates a total of six factories in the country.
“What concerns us here is helping our teams,” said Christophe Piednoël, who explained that on Monday night, the group had sent a first aid truck. Two other trucks, with blankets and tents, are due to arrive at the scene. “The factory has suffered but it is standing”, according to the Lactalis spokesman.
The objective is to house the employees and their families whose homes have been destroyed in a room set aside in the building. The group has also organized a blood donation campaign for its employees to be able to “attend medical emergencies.”
Two-tier crisis management
In this type of situation, Christophe Piednoël explained, “crisis management is carried out at two levels: at the local level, local leaders have gone to the scene within the framework defined by the Turkish authorities. The headquarters in France are also mobilizing and industrial experts are preparing to go there, as soon as possible, to see the state of the factory and see when food production can be restarted.
“The other challenge,” the Lactalis spokesman said, “is being able to collect the milk” that the cows of Turkish breeders continue to produce. The group sees how it can “organize itself so as not to lose material and continue to produce food locally.”
Source: BFM TV
