Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Sullivan Packaging Limited, leading designers and manufacturers of plastic packaging to the food, fresh fruit and meat industries is up and running - taking orders and supplying astonished customers all over the South & North Islands of NZ, and have a shipment ready to forward to Australia.

The factory building is located in Coleridge St in Sydenham, only 500 meters outside the cordon area of Christchurch.

The February 22 quake caused structural damage to the building's floor and cracks to some walls. Contents took a hammering with heavy machinery shaken from foundations, liquefaction appearing and stock ruined.

Thankfully none of the 20+ staff members were physically hurt but some endured damaged homes. However, that didn’t stop one worried staff member walking to work on February 23, only one day after the quake, from her temporary accommodation in Redcliffs, eager to play her role in keeping the ‘wheels’ turning.

The 2000 square meter tilt-slab-concrete building is owned by Company Directors Tony Orpwood - Managing Director of Sullivan Packaging and Brian Wilson - Managing Director of sister company Custom-Pak, of East Tamaki in Auckland. The business partners are thanking their lucky stars that staff are safe and on their own volition are keen to continue working.

“After relatively little damage from the previous quakes most of the damage to the building occurred on February 22 and thanks to the engineers, plumbers, our committed staff and the City of Christchurch, we have been safely up and running since Monday, February 28,” said Tony Orpwood.

“The factory still looks like a mess in parts and the clean up is on-going but we’re humming and hope this will encourage other businesses to get up and running also,” said Brian Wilson, who is visiting from Auckland.

ENDS

© Scoop Media