Prague, 18 November 2020 – Coca-Cola HBC started an extraordinarily wide support in different areas in order to help combat the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, hospitals, front line employees and voluntary associations were supported in their work with 2,100,000 bottles of drinks with a total worth of 26.2 million CZK. In the beginnings of the pandemic the company also used its know-how to manufacture over 65 thousand empty bottles for disinfection for city councils, fire fighters and the Prague airport. It also transformed its drink dispensers in selected shopping centres into so-called “Rouškomaty“, i.e. face mask dispensers. The full proceeds from the sales are forwarded to a supplier of face masks, the Kralupy nad Vltavou charity. Within its support of the HORECA segment the company also took part in a range of gastro initiatives that were created during the pandemic.
Coca-Cola HBC has committed to support its employees, consumers, customers and communities right at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. That is why it has been helping wherever the need arises since Spring. All administrative positions including the call-center were switched to home-office and maximum safety measures were implemented in order to continue with production, service and supplying. The employees took part in voluntary activities, too. One of them is conntat tracing within the Smart Quarantine of the Ministry of Health, where currently 19 volunteers from different departments and positions, including middle and top management, are helping.
“Our number one priority is to do the maximum for the safety of our employees, to stay close to our customers and to help communities. Those colleagues who could not perform their work in the first wave were paid 80 % of the salary instead of the statutory 60 %. At the same time we always strive to support our customers as well - hotels, restaurants, coffee shops. We have taken part in a range of their projects and together we offered for example free lunch menus for health care workers and rescue services, we supported projects such as “Vaříme nepostradatelným” (Cooking for essential workers), “Nekašleme na vás” (We have not forgotten about you) or “Jedlo zdravotníkom” (Food for health professionals). For weeks our colleagues have been helping hygienic stations from the safety of their homes with tracing contacts all across the Czech Republic. We plan to remain involved in this project until the end of the year,” said Patricie Šedivá, manager of external communications and international relations at Coca-Cola HBC CZ/SK.
Jan Václav Kašpar, Manager of Social Responsibility and Communities at Coca-Cola HBC CZ/SK added: “We keep monitoring where our support is needed and try to react as quickly as possible. We have provided drinks for employees on the frontlines in hospitals all around the country: in Prague Motol, Homolka, Královské Vinohrady, as well as hospitals in Plzeň, Mariánské lázně, Cheb, Česká Lípa, Kolín, Jihlava, sv. Anna in Brno, in Zlín, Karviná, České Budějovice or to rescue services in the Královéhradecký region, that include Broumovsky region where the Natura plant is located.” He then added that in Slovakia, the company supported for example the Košice hospital and Miestny podnik verejnoprospešných služieb Petržalka, for which it provided testing tents.
The majority of support in Slovakia is carried out via the Red Cross. The Red Cross provides support on behalf of the Coca-Cola system and in cooperation with the Coca-Cola Company Czech Republic and Slovakia – this year the Slovak Red Cross obtained over 200 thousand EUR, the Czech one then 6.3 million CZK. The Czech Red Cross used most of this money to support production of CoroVent pulmonary ventilators, developed by a team of experts at the Czech Technical University together with volunteers from the COVID19CZ platform. The Slovak Red Cross used these funds to ensure the purchase of medical tents which are used for the work of volunteers in hospital grounds. Last week the Coca-Cola Company Czech Republic and Slovakia announced additional support for the Red Cross within this year’s campaign, with the main challenge titled #DarujmeSe (Let’s give ourselves). The company had three million labels made with a QR code to help this organization in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia. The principle is simple; all you need to do is open your e-banking smartphone app and scan the QR code located on the Coca-Cola drinks’ labels. The QR code will directly create a payment order to the Red Cross. You will then be able to decide how much you wish to donate to those for whom Christmas this year won’t be the holiday of peace.
More about the company: https://cz.coca-colahellenic.com/cz, for Slovak media here: https://cz.coca-colahellenic.com/sk.