Bertazzoni director of style and communication, Valentina Bertazzoni has reflected on how both Italy and the company have been coping with COVID-19 amid the regulations imposed by the Italian government via a recent video interview with Appliance Retailer.
“Italy was hit very badly by COVID-19, especially Northern Italy, where we are based, we had very bad times at the beginning of March,” she said.
“We decided to close the factory one week before the government forced everybody to, because we realised in our area the situation was bad and the people working at Bertazzoni did not have any guidelines for being healthy and safe so they were worried.
“We decided that everybody should stay at home – we didn’t want them feeling stressed – and it was a wise move.We lost one week of production but one of the most important things we have is the people that work with us, so we wanted to protect them, and we went back to production at the beginning of May.
“During the seven weeks that the factory was closed, we made sure everything was properly prepared for the safety of our team with strict protocols in place, including face masks and social distancing and we believe we are managing it right.
“The factory is now running at 100% which means we have reopened all of our factory departments. We work on two rotating shifts to avoid having too many people at one time inside our buildings.
“We received confirmation that everybody returned to work and continues to be part of the Bertazzoni family. There wasn’t anybody that decided to stay at home – they wanted to return to normal life and be part of the re-start.”
Appliance Retailer caught up with Valentina via Zoom to receive this commentary. Watch our interview here.