Meet Ethan West and Keely Bott

Fonterra Processing Supervisor and Production Administrator

We are Ethan West and Keely Bott and we are proud Fonterra employees based at Fonterra Waitoa where we make Anmum and ensure it is of the highest quality. We are proud parents of our son Reiko, and he is our motivation to ensure that our consumers get the product that is best for their children.

As parents, food safety and quality are very important. It's a personal responsibility we have when working in our factory and something our teams takes very, very seriously. Part of our responsibility is to view all our traceability documents and to check every single batch of Anmum to ensure it meets our high standards. We see the milk come to our factory, we see the guys test it and track it through our entire process. We get to see what has happened to it, while it has been in our care and we know where it goes to in the sense that it goes to our little consumers throughout New Zealand.

There is a connection between what we do, what we make and because of where we work, in the Waikato, we see where that the fresh New Zealand milk is coming from. Each step has a caretaker, tankers that pick up the milk; they’re a caretaker, it comes to the factory; we’re a caretaker, and it goes to be canned and there’s caretakers there as well. The good thing about Anmum is that there is a unique QR code on each can so other parents can also see some of that information and know where our product comes from.

As parents you obviously want the best for your children. When we walk into work, we have photos of our kids up on the wall near the entrance, including our son Reiko. They are at the forefront of everything we do. That drives all of our behaviour and the things we focus on. It is not just our children, but all the children around the world. We know who we’re feeding, we have that close connection we feel with our customers and those who consume our food because they’re parents just like us.

Whilst this is our job, we don’t necessarily view it as just that. We view it as taking care of little New Zealanders just as we would our own children. That’s probably the key part really. That’s what we like about the QR code, is that parents can see some of the different stages of that care process that an Anmum can moves through along the journey.

We are proud to be part of that supply chain.