Wearing a mask was recommended
As the COVID-19 epidemic started, wearing a mask was recommended as a good protective tool. At one point, however, it wasn’t easy to buy them in the Czech Republic because delivery was prioritized to hospitals, doctors in the field, rescue teams, and social institutions. ViskoTeepak Brno HR team, together with our shift leaders, decided to provide their employees with masks as a benefit. One of the shift leaders happened to sew costumes for a dance group as a hobby, making it easy for us to learn how masks could be manufactured for our staff.

Finding the right material
There was one big issue, though. What material should be used? A lot of volunteers brought old bed linens from homes. And Filip Veselka, our Technical Service Manager, came up with the idea of using our pre-tied chicken loops to keep the mask in place on the face. In one of our meeting rooms, the guys from the management team invented a special way to make the textile cutting relatively automatic. Everything was done in-house with the help of many employees from almost all departments. Meanwhile, the government made mask use mandatory. So, we can say we were prepared to provide our employees with masks even if it could be outside of the employer’s obligation.

High use
Face masks have immediately become very widely used in the Czech Republic. Everybody needs to wear a mask whenever going outside. This includes everyone at the plant, even those on the shop floor. Since it’s warm and humid on the shop floor, each person was intended to have several masks to be able to change them throughout the day. For the time being, we also donated a few masks to the local rescue teams.

Customers manufacturing face masks
ViskoTeepak isn’t the only company to manufacture face masks with our loops. A customer in the US has placed its first order for our pre-tied loops. Why? To produce face masks.