Always safety first for Fonterra's Head of Supply

Sucked into a fuel pump in his father’s fuel distribution business when three years old, Joe Coote emerged only slightly bruised. 37 years later he is head of Fonterra’s (New Zealand) supply chain. Obviously safety is an important issue. "I think in Australia and New Zealand there's still a lot of work to do to be really great at managing safety culture," he said recently.

The Australian born Coote has been in charge of the supply chain at the world's biggest dairy exporter for a year and oversees an operation that exports 2.2 million tonnes of product to 140 countries each year, using 140,000 20-foot equivalent units (TEU)."The rural aspect was interesting, the dairy industry was interesting and then just the challenge in the supply chain in this part of the world, there wouldn't be many supply chains that have all of the challenges that we have to manage at Fonterra, Coote remarked"In the meantime, Fonterra recently won Best Health and Safety Initiative at the 2010 New Zealand Workplace Health and Safety Awards.

Read more here - Article 10654878, 'Safety - and sure delivery to world'