The Galicia Food Cluster (Clusaga) has participated in two grouped purchases of personal protection equipment, in collaboration with the Xunta de Galicia (Galician regional government) and other clusters and associations, facilitating the supply of a total of 125.900 masks to companies and freelancers in the regional food sector, which guarantees the protection of workers and food security.

The management of these grouped purchases has been started by the Xunta de Galicia after the needs identified by the Galician clusters in the meetings that the Regional Minister of Economy, Employment and Industry, Francisco Conde, has been holding with the representatives of these associations to know the demands and situation of the productive fabric in the community since the state of alarm was decreed in Spain.

The forecast of the Xunta de Galicia is to get the shipment of 2 million additional masks throughout next week, through a third grouped purchase that is still in the process of receiving requests from companies to the different clusters and associations.

All this material has been acquired by the Xunta de Galicia at market prices and provided to companies at the same price, through the intermediation of the clusters. This distribution, carried out from the logistics platform of the regional public administration (Clonegal), has reached not only the food and beverage sector, but also that of distributors, metallurgy, construction, engineering, wood, slate and granite, renewable energy, agricultural cooperatives, call centres and merchants.

In addition to participating in these grouped purchases, the Galicia Food Cluster maintains regular contact with the Xunta de Galicia, through videoconferences, to analyse the situation of the sector, channel the needs and demands of the Galicia food industry and seek ways of collaboration and help.

In this sense, Clusaga enabled the email covid[at]clusaga.org from the start of the health crisis on the occasion of COVID-19 to manage any queries, requests or needs from companies in the regional sector, as well as to receive requests to participate in these grouped purchases. In addition, Clusaga has enabled a specific section on its website with information of interest to the industry, which includes everything from action protocols to economic and labour measures that have been adopted by the authorities.