‘The five shifts are great and my colleagues are fantastic.’
From meat, to... meat!
Before joining Teeling Petfood, Mervin worked as a butcher at a butcher/slaughterhouse owned by his father. So he didn’t need to get used to the smell at Teeling Petfood, but the work is very different.The reason Mervin decided to make the switch to Teeling? ‘The five shifts are great and my colleagues are fantastic. You have four days off, so there’s lots of free time.’
12 kilos lighter in six months
Mervin no longer needs to exercise, as he’s mostly involved with weighing and mixing. He explained: ‘Since I started working here (May 2022), I’ve lost 12 kilos. I don’t think that would’ve happened if I was working in a different department. But I didn’t want to go for 100%, I wanted to go for 200%.’
He still does do some exercise though; angling that is. Mervin: ‘I go fishing - that’s my exercise. I usually do it mid-week so it’s nice and quiet everywhere. I really enjoy that.’
Challenges and ambitions
The biggest challenge as a weighing/mixing operator? ‘Sometimes you have a mix where you need to add five or six ingredients and you need to weigh everything too,’ explained Mervin. ‘It’s good to have extra help in those cases.’ You also sometimes have an easier mix of just 100 g: ‘Once the mix is half way, I make a new mix, go for coffee and then I can process the rest.’
Mervin has many ambitions within Teeling Petfood: ‘I want to be able to do everything, from A to Z. I’d like to become a technical operator so I can work everywhere.’
