Sofina Foods Inc., confirmed on Thursday that one employee tested positive for COVID-19 at the company’s Calgary plant.
The plant, located in southeast Calgary — which manufactures fresh chicken products — said the worker who tested positive is “self-isolating and doing well.”
“We had anticipated this possibility as part of our COVID-19 business continuity planning and had identified proactive measures to mitigate the risks to our employees,” operations director at the Calgary-based plant Gerry Beadle said in a news release on Thursday.
Beadle also noted that the company has been working with Alberta Health Services to ensure the plant can continue to function while ensuring the safety of its 450 employees.
He said several initiatives have been implemented at the plant that follow the best practices guidelines laid out from the Public Health Agency of Canada and industry professionals.
Those measures include the installation of plexiglass separators between working stations, increasing sanitization of offices and working areas and staggering breaks between employees to help ensure physical distancing.
“This gave us a significant head start to promptly and effectively address this type of incident,” Beadle said.
Sofina Foods said the plant is still fully operational after Alberta Health Services confirmed all necessary measures to protect the health of their employees and prevent any further spread of the virus had been taken.
“You have to check a lot of boxes to make it safe and one of the boxes they haven’t checked is to slow production and now we have a COVID diagnosis there.”
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