Gert van der Berg of Berry Astrapak Marcom reclaimed his title of the acclaimed SHEQ Manager of the Year award at the fifth annual Quality Awards, which was held on the Zoom virtual platform once again on 18 November 2021. The 2021 trophy marks four wins out of five events for Gert!

With the end of 2021 growing near, it’s that time of the year where we showcased our outstanding efforts in maintaining high standards in the realms of Health, Safety and Quality. Five years ago, we embarked on a quality improvement competition amongst our eight manufacturing sites with the unified goal of reducing the number of customer complaints across the Group by 50%. We are proud to announce that we have surpassed this goal and continue with year-on-year improvements.

While Gert claimed the SHEQ Manager of the Year for continually driving Quality, Health and Safety objectives at Marcom, it was also Marcom that claimed the overall SHEQ Site of the Year award for going the extra mile in upholding SHEQ standards. This year was the third time that Marcom has collected this award.

**SHEQ Site of the Year 2021 -** BERRY ASTRAPAK MARCOM

The air was buzzing with excitement and the proceedings for the afternoon began with MD Craig Matthews opening the event. Craig welcomed the guests on the virtual platform and acknowledged the hard work that each site and individual put in to achieve exceptional results.

“Quality, Sustainability, and Health and Safety are the cornerstones on which great businesses are built. If you don’t look after these attributes, ultimately your business will fail,” said Craig. “Over the last five years and even more, I think you are all aware we have placed a huge effort into refining these areas. Our goals to continuously improve our health and safety standards, and to reach higher towards our quality and sustainability objectives, is a crucial element within the greater group, and one in which we remain aligned to the [Berry] Group’s principles,” he said.

Group SHEQ Manager Helmien Raath, acknowledged the challenges that the company has experienced with the onset of Covid-19 and the introduction of numerous new protocols for health and safety compliance, yet “Astrapak raised the bar and delivered some impressive results during this stressful period.

“We implemented the new Berry Blue standards requirements, with all those sites that have been audited achieving full compliance and the coveted Blue rating. There were never delays keeping up the improvement drive and requests from Berry and our teams always pulled through regardless of the complexity of the tasks at hand. Well done to you all!”

Helmien also mentioned a special word of thanks to MD Craig Matthews, “Thank you for always being dedicated and positive in your approach to our SHEQ initiatives – you reiterate safety in every meeting at site level and you tirelessly support our efforts and commitment to make health and safety a success at Astrapak. Thank you, Craig.”

The motivational “Guest Speaker” message took the form of a TedTalk for this virtual edition. Entitled “The Power of Vulnerability”, the speaker Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston, presented her inspirational, poignant, funny talk captured at TEDxHouston in 2010 and shared with over 55 million viewers worldwide. She shares a deep insight from her research, one that sent her on a personal quest to know herself as well as to understand humanity.

As we move onto the award categories and prize winners, we acknowledge each site for their drive for improvement, talent development and determination to uphold our world-class Health, Safety, Quality and Sustainability standards. We recognise the teams and individuals for their stellar output and efforts to pursue excellence in all operations.

HEALTH & SAFETY CATEGORY:

**Most Improved Site** – BERRY ASTRAPAK JJ PRECISION

**Best SHE Site** – BERRY ASTRAPAK MARCOM

**Best Improvement Idea** – BERRY ASTRAPAK MARCOM

QUALITY CATEGORY:

**Most Improved Site** – BERRY ASTRAPAK THERMOPAC

**Best Site of The Year** – BERRY ASTRAPAK THERMOPAC

SUSTAINABILITY CATEGORY:

**Least Waste to Landfill**– BERRY ASTRAPAK PLASTOP

SHEQ CATEGORY:

A new trophy for 2021 is the Best Safety Week Presentation of 2020, which acknowledged the site that best presented their Safety Week initiatives.

**Best Safety Week Presentation of 2020** – BERRY ASTRAPAK MARCOM

Congratulations to all our trophy winners on your excellent performance throughout the year. Such accolades would not have been possible without dedication to achieve consistent results. Your efforts do not go unrecognised, and we celebrate alongside you. Thank you for giving above and beyond to keep up our world-class customer service and health and safety standards. You can be very proud of these achievements.

Gert van der Berg makes it four from five at annual Quality Awards