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Visitor and contractor sign-in on NZ orchards: what to record, and why

Who should sign in at the orchard gate, what a useful record holds, where paper books fall short, and how to make it stick in harvest.

Last reviewed 1 October 2026. General information, not legal advice: for your own situation, check the official sources linked in each section.

No law says an orchard must keep a visitor book. What the law does ask is that you take reasonable care of everyone at your workplace, give visitors health and safety information that fits the risk, and have an emergency plan that can reach everyone on site. A sign-in record is the simplest way to do all three, and to show later that you did.

This guide covers who should sign in, what a useful record holds, where paper books fall short, and how to set up a routine that holds up in harvest as well as in the quiet months. It applies to orchards of any crop.

What WorkSafe and the law actually say

Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, the business running the orchard (the PCBU, short for "person conducting a business or undertaking") has duties to its own workers and to other people at the workplace.

WorkSafe's position on visitors is plain. A business "must take reasonable care to keep everyone at the workplace healthy and safe. This includes both workers and others." Visitors should get "an appropriate and proportionate level of health and safety information and protection." Visitors have duties too: they must follow reasonable instructions, including wearing protective gear.

WorkSafe also says a business "may ask visitors to sign a form to show that they have understood the information they have been given." That is an option, not a rule. It is also the most practical way to prove the information was given.

Three other rules point the same way:

  • Contractors. WorkSafe's farm guidance says farmers and contractors "must work together to meet their overlapping duties every time a contractor comes on farm." Its checklist asks whether you told the contractor about expected and unexpected risks, agreed on time in and time out reporting, and made a note of what you told them.
  • Emergencies. Every business must have an emergency plan. Regulation 14 of the Health and Safety at Work (General Risk and Workplace Management) Regulations 2016 says the plan must include procedures for effective communication between whoever coordinates the response "and all other persons at the workplace." You cannot reach people you do not know are there.
  • People working alone. Regulation 21 of the same regulations says remote or isolated work needs "a system of work that includes effective communication with the worker." A sampler, assessor or sprayer working alone on a large block fits that description.

Not everyone who crosses your land is a visitor to your work. WorkSafe's farm guidance says that where someone such as a hunter or tramper crosses an area not being used for work, and not close to the buildings, the farmer "shouldn't need to take any action in relation to that person." The duty follows the work.

How duties overlap between growers, contractors and orchard management companies is a subject of its own. Start with WorkSafe's guidance on contractors on farms, linked in the sources below, and get advice on your own arrangements.

Why the record matters when something goes wrong

When something goes wrong on an orchard, the question is rarely whether a rule existed. It is whether the business can show its system.

In May 2016 a worker collecting kiwifruit samples was fatally injured when her quad bike rolled on hazardous terrain at an orchard. Her employer, Stevens and Stevens Limited, was convicted in the Tauranga District Court in September 2018, fined $306,000 and ordered to pay $75,000 in reparation. WorkSafe's summary of the case says the company failed to establish a safe system of work that identified potential hazards, and did not put proper controls in place for its workers, particularly those working alone.

A sign-in record would not have prevented that on its own. What it gives you is the starting point every safety system needs: knowing who is on which orchard, what they were told, and when they should be back.

Who should sign in

A simple rule works best: anyone who comes onto the working parts of the orchard signs in, every time.

  • Contractors and their crews: pruning, thinning, picking, spraying, mowing, shelter trimming, irrigation, electricians and engineers.
  • Labour-hire and seasonal workers, including RSE crews.
  • Assessors, samplers, consultants and auditors, and staff from your packhouse or marketer.
  • Couriers and deliveries that go past the shed and into the orchard.
  • Family and friends on a working property, including children.
  • Your own staff, if they move between several orchards you manage.

Every person, not a headcount. In harvest it is tempting to let a crew leader write "12 pickers". A number cannot tell you who is missing at a muster point, who was shown the site rules, or who was on a block on a given day. Each person signs in for themselves.

What a useful record holds

A sign-in record earns its keep when someone asks a question months later. Build it to answer these:

  1. Who. Each person's full name and the company they work for.
  2. Where. Which orchard or block. One book at a shared gate for several properties loses this.
  3. When. The time they arrived and the time they left.
  4. What they were told. Which site information, hazards, maps or induction they were shown, and which version. Site rules change, so "the hazard sheet" means little without knowing which one.
  5. How to reach them. A mobile number, if your emergency plan relies on contacting people.
  6. Your gate questions. For example which part of the orchard they are working in, or when they expect to leave.

Keep it to what you will use. That keeps sign-in quick, and it makes privacy simpler (see below).

Where paper books fall short

Paper sign-in books are cheap and familiar. They tend to fail in the same ways:

  • They are only as good as the last person who filled them in. A book in a shed or a ute gets skipped when people are in a hurry, which is most of harvest.
  • Weather. Rain and dust get to pages and pens at the gate.
  • No record of what people were shown. A signature next to a name rarely says which version of your hazard sheet the person read.
  • No live view. Nobody in the office, or at another orchard, can see who is still on site at 6pm.
  • Hard to search. Finding everyone who was on one block over one week means paging through books, if they can be found.
  • Slow in an emergency. Someone has to fetch the book before the roll call can start.

None of this makes paper wrong. If you use it, use it well: one book per site, kept dry, with a column for time out and a note of what each person was shown.

Making it work at the gate

Whatever you use, the routine matters more than the tool. Zespri's harvesting guide for kiwifruit contractors puts it simply: "Have a sign-in system ready for arriving pickers." The same applies to every crop and every visit.

  • Put sign-in where everyone passes. At the entrance, not inside the shed.
  • Make it quick. Every extra question is a reason to skip it. Ask only what you will use.
  • Show the hazards that matter today, not a ten-page manual. Current spray areas, machinery at work, overhead lines, uneven ground, water.
  • Warn people about work underway. WorkSafe's farm guidance gives the example of a sign on the gate or paddock fence warning people of work in the area.
  • Ask people working alone when they expect to finish, and decide who checks when that time passes.
  • Signing out matters as much as signing in. A record with no time out is little use at a roll call. Decide who follows up on people who forget.
  • Agree the routine with each contractor once. Use their first visit to agree how their crew will sign in and out.
  • Look at the record every week. Gaps show you where the routine is breaking.

Privacy: collect what you need, keep it only as long as you need it

A sign-in record is personal information, so the Privacy Act 2020 applies. Two of its principles matter most here.

  • Only collect what you need. The Privacy Commissioner's guidance on principle 1 is: "Don't collect people's identifiers such as name, phone number, etc unless it's necessary for your collection purpose." A name, company and phone number are easy to justify for site safety. A date of birth usually is not.
  • Don't keep it forever. Principle 9 says personal information must not be kept "for longer than is required for the purposes for which the information may lawfully be used."

Two practical points follow:

  • Be careful with health questions. It can be tempting to ask about medical conditions at the gate. Health information is sensitive. Ask only if you have a clear reason and a plan for the answer, and consider whether a general instruction does the job instead, such as "tell the orchard manager if you have a condition that matters for this work".
  • Choose your retention period on purpose. If you belong to an audit scheme, it may set a minimum period for keeping records. Cover that, and no more than you need.

Tell people why you are collecting their details (principle 3). One line at the top of the sign-in sheet or screen is enough.

A checklist you can copy

  • Everyone who comes onto working areas signs in, every time, each person individually.
  • Each record shows name, company, site, time in and time out.
  • People see the hazards that matter today before they go in.
  • You can show which version of your site information each person was shown.
  • People working alone give an expected finish time, and someone checks it.
  • Someone follows up on people who have not signed out.
  • Your emergency plan says how you will find out who is on site.
  • You collect only what you need, tell people why, and have a retention period.
  • You can find every visit to one site over any date range in minutes, not hours.

How GateBud does this

GateBud™ is QR visitor check-in for orchards. It is built around the routine above:

  • Visitors and contractors scan a QR code at the gate and check in on a mobile web page. No app, password or account.
  • Before entry they review the hazards, maps and documents for that site. For documents you mark as required, GateBud saves the exact version each person confirmed.
  • You choose the check-in questions: short answers, a choice of options, a number, or how long they expect to be on site.
  • On site now shows who is at each site. People who look overdue are flagged, using the time they gave, or after 10 hours if they gave none.
  • Visitors scan again to check out. Your team can sign out someone who forgot, with a note that stays on the record.
  • The Evacuation roll call lists everyone checked in, made for reading out at the assembly point, and can be printed.
  • The Visitor log keeps every visit, filtered by site and date, and exports as PDF or CSV. Corrections keep the original history.
  • You choose how many years visitor names are kept, from 1 to 20, after which they are removed automatically. You can also switch that clean-up off.

The page needs enough signal to load. If reception drops during check-in, GateBud saves the entry on the phone and retries while the page stays open.

For the audit side of these records, read GAP audits: what auditors look for in visitor, contractor and induction records. For the biosecurity side, read Biosecurity at the orchard gate.

Sources

All checked on 1 October 2026.

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