by Kirsten Moore, Cooperative Services Director
Your Co-op is well prepared for various emergencies, with plans for all sorts of events we hope to never, ever need to use: active shooter, fires, foodborne illness outbreaks, gas leaks, medical emergencies, missing children reports, power failures, product recalls, refrigeration failures, robberies, severe weather, water outages, and more. Preparedness aside, we have had to make many adjustments since late February that neither we, nor public health officials, nor anyone else in the grocery industry, could have predicted. Within these challenges, your Co-op has had the opportunity to test our systems, hone our problem-solving skills, and utilize perhaps our greatest gifts: cooperation and teamwork. Here’s a roundup of our COVID-19 efforts thus far.
Store Hours
On March 16, we reduced our hours to 10:00am-8:00pm daily so our employees can do many of the things that we would normally do when the store is open (such as stocking shelves, tending to our departments, and thoroughly cleaning) without customers present. This provides more opportunity to practice safe social distancing throughout the entire workday.
Customer Capacity, Special Hours for Certain Shoppers
By March 18, we started customer capacity limits. At the time of writing, customer capacity was limited to 30 people at a time. From 10:00am to 11:00am we have been asking customers to reserve this time for seniors and shoppers with compromised immune systems. We have also asked customers and employees to respect the choices of others to shop during this first hour, as age and ability are not always visible, and our employees are not health professionals; none of us are qualified to ask customers to validate their reasons to shop during this time. Door monitors are staffed at the entry to keep track of customer counts. When there are lines, they monitor traffic in the front of the store near Produce to make sure there is enough space to let more people into the store. If customers have visible difficulties standing or walking, door monitors do their best to bring those customers to the front of the line, and to also work with customers who inform them that standing or walking is a challenge. This process has not always been perfect, and been refined thanks to experience and Owner feedback. We appreciate the patience that people have had with us while we’ve had these unusual limitations in place. Door monitors also take on the task of washing carts when customers exit the store, so fresh carts can be made available to new customers.
General Service Limitations
With guidance from Public Health Madison and Dane County, we have suspended various services to remove potential COVID-19 exposure points. We have not been able to offer any sampling, demos, classes, or store tours, and we also postponed our annual Cheese Challenge. Reusable containers or shopping bags (with the exception of clean bulk water containers) are not allowed. Shopping baskets are unavailable because we do not have the labor to hand-clean the baskets often enough, and increasing the frequency of washing them in our commercial dishwashers was damaging the baskets. Our indoor and outdoor commons are closed.
Some services have been temporarily suspended due to limits imposed by our suppliers to manage the overall supply chain. We have not been able to take any orders or hold requests for customers over the phone. We imposed maximum purchase limits for certain items due to high demand and insufficient supply. We have been unable to advertise promotional prices available because suppliers cannot guarantee these items will be stocked as initially planned. We look forward to solving these issues.
Owner Benefits
When Owners pre-order items at case volume, they typically receive a discount. Owners also can typically special order items at case volume that are available to us but we don’t carry on our shelves. Due to the ordering limitations imposed by some of our suppliers, we cannot take these orders because it adds additional challenges to stocking our shelves.
One benefit we have increased for Owners is the Access Discount. As of March 24, and through the duration of the Safer At Home Order, the Access Discount is increased from 10% to 20%. Raising the discount temporarily supports those with low income in making larger, less frequent shopping trips to practice social distancing. The Access Discount also applies to purchases on shop.willystreet.coop, including the pickup or delivery fees.
Online Shopping and Delivery
Demand for pickup and delivery service has never been higher, and grocers everywhere are feeling the pressure. We’ve been training as many employees as possible to shop orders that come in from shop.willystreet.coop, ring them through the register system, and deliver. Thanks to creativity and cooperation, we have quickly grown the program via increased e-commerce staffing, purchasing a third delivery van and two additional register lanes for back-of-house, and developing a new partnership with Union Cab Cooperative to augment delivery capacity. Since March 2, the Co-op has grown pickup and delivery slots available by 3,807% and e-commerce sales have increased 2,055% (and we are still adding more pickup and delivery slots when possible). Like all grocers using either their own, or a third-party delivery service, no matter how much we’ve grown, we have not been able to meet the demand. Whenever we add slots, they almost always fill right away. We will continue to experiment and grow this program as much as we can to better meet the interest.
Our pickup and delivery program is not reliant on third-party ordering services; the people shopping the orders are our employees. No one delivering for the Co-op uses their own vehicle. The online platform is a pilot we launched last summer with our point of sale service provider. We never dreamed of the public health need to rapidly increase its capacity. Each change requires coordination with our service provider, and we are working with them to develop the mobile version of our platform while refining the desktop version to meet new demands. All items available on the platform are shopped from Willy North. If you select pickup at Willy East or Willy West, your order will be shopped at Willy North and brought to the other store locations. Some of the employees currently supporting our e-commerce program normally work at our Production Kitchen or in departments at other sites that are slower due to COVID-19-related changes. The new capacity increases are under constant evaluation, and subject to change based on available labor and program efficiency.
Using FoodShare/QUEST on shop.willystreet.coop
Federal regulations disallow the use of FoodShare/QUEST (SNAP) cards to secure a pickup or delivery order online in Wisconsin. As a result, many stores do not accept FoodShare/QUEST payment for online orders. The Co-op does accept FoodShare/QUEST for online purchases. If you are interested, place the order online, and then at checkout select that you would like to use your Electronic
Benefits Transfer (EBT) card to pay for eligible items, and secure the order using a credit or debit card. When you pick up or we deliver, we will use a card reader to scan your EBT card to pay for the eligible items, and then charge the remaining balance to the credit or debit card you initially provided.
Pickup Options, Including Curbside in the Parking Lots
Orders placed on shop.willystreet.coop may be picked up at all three retail locations (or delivered to various zip codes in the area).
Over the Easter holiday, we piloted curated grocery boxes to order on our website for pickup. We now offer weekly staple boxes and specialty boxes. We have an omnivore or vegetarian staple box, and other rotating specialty boxes. Details are available at www.willystreet.coop/co-op-blog/grocery-boxes.
All three locations allow pickup in store, and have the ability to bring pickup orders curbside to your vehicle. Call your store location when you arrive, and we will drop your pickup order off at your vehicle in the lot. If you did not drive, we will put your order in a designated location outside to pick up when you call, and you may pick up the order without contact with our employees.
Prepared Foods, Meat and Seafood
All salad and hot bars, as well as the made-to-order service in Meat, Deli, Seafood (North only), and the Juice and Coffee Bars are closed. Seafood Centers at East and West are still open; they are a separate business who leases our space. We do still have limited Grab & Go deli, juice, and coffee offerings as well as Shizen sushi and bakery products from outside suppliers. All the meat (and seafood at North) that would normally be available at the counter is now pre-packaged. Due to the drastic changes, the Production Kitchen has been temporarily closed since April 13. All Production Kitchen employees were offered the option to work at our North location supporting home delivery and pickup service, and some of those employees opted for voluntary furlough.
Front End
In addition to no longer accepting reusable bags, we have taken precautions at the registers and the Customer Service desk. Each register lane and the Customer Service desk has plexiglass barriers between employees and customers. We started installing these barriers the week of March 13, becoming some of the first in the region to offer this protection. We have markers on the floor at the lanes to help customers keep six feet apart. Lanes and pin-pads for using credit cards are wiped down frequently (between each transaction when possible).
We are asking all customers who have the ability to pay with a card instead of cash to please do so. If you would like to limit your interaction with the pin-pads further, we do accept Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, which allows for you to make your payment without touching your card to the card reader, and only having to accept the total on the pin pad screen.
Bulk and Produce
We have suspended the option for customers to self-dispense items in the Bulk aisles, and have been pre-packaging items as time and product availability allows. We do not have the capacity at this time to take orders for certain items at certain weights over the phone. Our Produce department has also made changes to ensure that none of the products available require scoops or tongs to select for purchase. These changes have resulted in some more single-use packaging, but have also limited the number of items in the store for customers and employees to frequently touch.
Employee Safety
Our mission is to serve both our Owners and employees. While customers are at the Co-op for a limited amount of time, our employees are at work for many hours a day and many days of the week. Here are a few things we’ve worked out with our employees’ union to ensure that we are meeting safety and security needs during this time:
- Hazard bonuses: employees working at the retail sites (and at the Production Kitchen when it was open), have been receiving hazard bonuses equivalent to an additional $2 per hour for the number of hours worked in each pay period. These bonuses have been offered retroactively for hours worked since March 16.
- Attendance and COVID-19 absences: employees who cannot work their scheduled shifts due to the COVID-19 outbreak will not be penalized. Since March 1, extra paid leave has been provided to employees for COVID-19-related absences both as bargained, and in compliance with Federal legislation.
- Health insurance: Full-time employees who have had hours temporarily reduced due to either unavailability of work or COVID-19-related sick or emergency leave have been able to retain their full-time health insurance status.
- Work from home: Regardless of whether employees are part of the bargaining unit, if they work in an administrative department, they are able to do at least some (and in some cases all) of their work at home if their duties can be performed remotely.
- Social distancing: We practice social distancing whenever possible at all sites, both when around customers, and behind the scenes or at the office. We have also made some areas at the retails into additional break space for employees to support keeping a distance.
- Face coverings: All employees have received two free cloth face coverings and use of face coverings is mandated. Employees who cannot wear face coverings for reasons such as difficulty breathing or an inability to remove face coverings without additional assistance are exempt from this mandate. We have a policy regarding face covering usage and care, and we have offered additional face coverings at wholesale cost. Employees may also procure their own face coverings.
- Gloves and hand sanitizer: Disposable gloves are available to all employees to wear at their discretion, with a policy in place for standards of use. Small spray bottles of hand sanitizer are also available to all employees to carry and use throughout their shift. It is not always easy to change gloves frequently, and the CDC still recommends frequent hand-washing as the best practice for good hygiene. For these reasons, we do not require employees to wear gloves unless they need to wear them to comply with Wisconsin Food Code or OSHA requirements.
Both our glove and face covering policies for employees were drafted in close consultation with Public Health Madison and Dane County, who have records of our policies for reference and to share best practices with their teams and other businesses.
Bouncing Back, the Future, and You
At the time of writing, the Safer At Home order had been extended to expire at 8:00am on May 26. Governor Tony Evers had just written the Badger Bounce Back plan for re-opening businesses and society in phases. Someday we will be able to return to a version of normal, but like the rest of our community, we are just beginning to explore what the future will hold. We hope that all of you are taking precautions with us, continuing to wash your hands, covering coughs and sneezes, monitoring your symptoms, wearing face coverings in public, keeping six feet of distance between you and others outside your homes, and limiting your trips to places like the Co-op where you may come into contact with more people than is typically safe at this time. Please continue to be mindful of your surroundings and how close you are to the people around you when you shop. It is hard and the habits are hard to break for all of us. If you feel like another customer or employee is too close to you, please feel free to provide each other gentle reminders, we are all learning together. Try to come shopping prepared with a list and please do your best to limit what you touch in the stores to what you plan to buy whenever possible. We can put all kinds of policies and signs in place, but we have to be self-responsible and look out for each other as well. We look forward to the community’s hard efforts to keep distance leading to growing our capacity to serve you to the fullest again soon.
Our Partners, Our Gratitude
Special thanks to UE Local 1186, all of our suppliers and distributors, our benefits providers, Public Health Madison and Dane County, and all of our employees, Owners, and managers for working together to make this tough situation as easy to navigate as possible. We appreciate all your feedback and support throughout this time. Stay safe out there, and good health to you!
