Keeping Safe and Clean in the Roastery
If you're unfamiliar with food manufacturing regulations, this is an opportune time to learn. The Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sets rules for all food manufacturers (coffee roasters included) intended to keep food products safe for consumption. We (the roasters) look at those rules, interpret them, and write our own internal procedures for following the rules. Every business has a different building, staff, and product, so everyone's procedures look a little different, but we are all doing what needs to be done to ensure the products you consume are safe (as well as super tasty, but the government doesn't really care about that part).
So how does COVID-19 change things? The simple answer is that we are doing a lot more cleaning and sanitizing. At the time of this writing, there has been no evidence to suggest that COVID-19 is transferred through food products. Rather, the big concern is human-to-human interaction, which is why so many people are at home reading this blog post right now. Here is what we have implemented around the roastery:
We are cleaning and sanitizing high touch areas (such as doorknobs, keyboards, and desks) at least daily and more frequently if warranted.
We are physically distancing from each other and attempting to maintain four feet of space. We are also minimizing the number of people in a room.
Those of us who can work at home are doing so when possible.
We are washing our hands hourly at least. Additionally, we are washing hands after person-to-person contact, between job tasks, etc. We also have multiple hand sanitizer dispensers throughout our production space.
We have closed our space to the public and are currently only allowing production staff in the roastery.
We are encouraging good hygiene outside of work as well, and asking that employees shower after changing environments and wear only clean clothes to work.
During production, we are wearing gloves and changing them often, while also acknowleging that gloves are not a replacement for proper hand washing.
We are cleaning and sanitizing all handheld tools (such as bean scoops) after use, even if used only lightly.
We are continuing to deliver coffee to our cafe and restaurant partners while also being abundantly cautious. Our driver is bringing a change of clothes to work: one outfit for deliveries and one to change into when he's done. He is carrying disinfectant on him during deliveries and changing gloves after every stop. All tools and equipment used for deliveries are being disinfected before re-entering the roastery.
It is our hope, through all of this, to continue to provide you with delicious coffee. Extra cleaning and abundant caution shouldn't interfere with that goal. We hope you stay safe and healthy and that all our lives return to a sense of normalcy soon.
Stay tuned in to this blog space as well as our social media for the latest info.