Press Release: Pulling Out All The Stops To Get Staff Vaccinated

New Zealand’s largest mushroom grower, Meadow Mushrooms is rolling up its sleeves to get its community protected against Covid-19, with a range of approaches that are proving successful.

In the company’s latest move to support staff and their families to get vaccinated, Meadow Mushrooms is offering on-site Covid-19 vaccines at their main farm site today.

While the current vaccination rates in Canterbury are improving*, Meadow Mushrooms commitment to encouraging and supporting its employees and their families to get vaxxed has had great success. Currently, 70% of their 500-strong workforce are on track to be fully vaccinated.

In addition to today’s on-site vaccination drive, Meadow Mushrooms has supported its employees to get vaccinated during work hours with paid time off.  Alternatively, if employees prefer to get vaccinated outside of working hours, Meadow Mushrooms has provided a $20 contribution per vaccine to support employees get to vaccination centres.

Now, this New Zealand family owned and operated company is making the job of getting vaccinated for their staff even easier by providing vaccinations at their main site in Christchurch. The offer to be vaccinated on site is also being extended to family of employees.

Meadow Mushrooms CEO Todd Grave says the company is committed to the safety of the community, its staff and their families and believes one of the most important actions right now is to get its people vaccinated.

“We want to play our part in New Zealand’s Covid-19 vaccination rollout by protecting our Meadow Mushrooms community. From the outset, we have been working to remove any barriers to get our team vaccinated and make it as easy as possible for them to get protected against the virus. The arrival of the Delta variant in New Zealand has made vaccination even more important,” says Grave.

MP for Wigram, Minister Hon Dr Megan Woods will be at the vaccination drive at Meadow Mushrooms’ farm today as people roll up their sleeves. Grave says Meadow Mushrooms is grateful for the support they have received from the Canterbury District Health Board and Minister Woods to make on-site vaccinations possible.

“Being able to provide this service on-site, in a safe space for our employees and their family, is really important. We want to make getting vaccinated convenient for our Meadow Mushrooms community, which is particularly important given the large number of shift workers we employ. We know that a key barrier to getting vaccinated is finding the time to do this,” says Grave.

This is an important move from Meadow Mushrooms as the New Zealand Government rallies New Zealanders to get vaccinated to help fight the current Delta outbreak. The Government wants more than 90 per cent of eligible people to be vaccinated against Covid-19.