Merry Christmas & Thank You

Thank you for your support.  The Agfirst team would like to say a huge thank you to all our clients for their continued support over the year.  We look forward to working with you to add value in 2011. 

The PSA discovery in November was a real sting in the tail for 2010 and represents a significant challenge for us all in 2011 and beyond. 

Have a fantastic time with family and friends while keeping a watching eye on that amazing fruit growing on the vines.

Hospice Donation

After consultation with staff members it has also been decided that rather than send out Christmas cards this year, we would make a donation to a local charity; we hope you agree that our donation to Waipuna Hospice is a wise one

ISO 17025 Accreditation

As part of our commitment to quality systems we are very pleased to announce that Agfirst BOP now has ISO 17025 accreditation from IANZ, this is in addition to our ISO 9000 certification from Telarc.  

Accreditation by International Accreditation New Zealand (IANZ) is the international process for assessing and recognising the technical competence and the effective quality processes of a professional service and its staff in the five key areas below:

- Competence and experience of staff
- Integrity and traceability of equipment and materials
- Technical validity of methods
- Validity and suitability of results
- Compliance with appropriate management systems standards and is found to be competent to carry out its services in a professional, reliable and efficient manner

learn more about IANZ accreditation at ianz.govt.nz

Staff Changes

We farewell Tim Van der Hulst one of our web developers and wish him well in his new role in Auckland.

We welcome Antoine Spodobalski as a web developer. Antoine hails from France and is enjoying the slower, tranquil life of the Bay of Plenty.

We welcome Andrew Evans, a student from Gisborne who is studying at Canterbury University in his third year of a BSc intending to major in geography and computer science. Andrew will be assisting us over the summer months with a Tech NZ project on web based GIS solutions

We welcome Joanna Pickford as assistant to Richard Keesing in our Quality Assurance and Research & Development areas. Joanna has a BSc from Massey University and having grown up on an orchard in the Bay and worked in packhouses, she will no doubt put this knowledge to good use.
 

PSA

We are working with the industry trying to balance managing PSA risk with sensible manageable processes that keep the industry viable.  We will keep you up-to-date with the hygiene processes we will be adopting.

Christmas Shutdown

The office will be closed for the Christmas shutdown from close of business on Thursday 23rd December opening again on Wednesday 5 January 2011. The lab will continue to process Avocado Library samples as normal with the exception of Christmas Day and New Years Day. We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and prosperous 2011.