While that in itself may not sound spectacular, the free fruit is a gesture organised by the AgProud rural community group to thank meat and dairy processors for working during the covid-19 pandemic lockdown.
This week more than 30 farmers, meat and dairy workers on their day off, and Ballance staff descended on an Earnscleugh orchard and picked about eight tonnes of fruit.
It was then given away to staff at the Finegand, Lorneville and Prime Range meat works and the Edendale and Open Country Dairy processing plants.
AgProud spokesperson Jon Pemberton says this was the second consignment of fruit given to primary sector process workers in South Otago and Southland, and there is one more pick planned for next Wednesday.
AgProud volunteers packing fruit outside Silver Fern Farms Finegand works. From left, Mark Paterson, Carol Sutherland, Hamish Bielski, Alison Ludemann and Graham Hunter.
The gesture recognised that workers risked infection and difficult work conditions by having to adhere to social distancing and other restrictions to ensure milk and meat was processed for farmers.
Pemberton says one of AgProud’s purposes is to link urban and rural communities, and most staff who work in dairy factories and meat plants are from urban centres.
“We just want to say thank you to the people who worked through all the social distancing, uncertainty and stress, especially as there was an outbreak of the virus at a wedding in Bluff, that because without you we would not be able to send milk or get stock away.
“You were just as an integral part as we were,” Pemberton said.
He says the free fruit has been well received.
“The reaction has been outstanding, it’s been great,” he said.
He hopes to get about 60 people picking fruit next week to be given to the remaining processing plants, truck drivers and others in the community who stepped up during lockdown.
