While we’ve all felt the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in our homes and in our businesses, no industry has been more affected than the restaurant industry.
There hasn’t been a fresh produce supplier or farm in the UK that hasn’t been impacted by COVID-19. In some instances, it has shown how fragile our supply chains are — in others, how robust they can be.
As produce supervisors, we were often looked at as retail “cops,” making unannounced visits around our 66-store chain to drop in on produce managers and see what kind of shape their departments were in that day.
Suddenly the industry’s attention on continuous improvement has wavered. The COVID-19 crisis refocused operators on simply surviving. Full steam ahead on plastics, recyclable or not!
At the beginning of March, I would have never imagined the world would be in its current state, when suddenly, my social media, news outlets and work e-mail were taken over by COVID-19 updates.
A black pickup truck emerged from the dawn fog on a chilly December morning, pulling into the hotel driveway in upstate New York. In the driver’s seat was Jim Allen, vice president marketing at New York Apple Sales.
Both conventional and organic farming employ finished compost to enhance tilth and provide slow-release fertilizer for crops. However, compost can also pose a risk to the food safety of fresh produce.
On a daily basis, The Packer sees a number of ways in which lives are being changed by the COVID-19 pandemic, from foodservice operators and the companies that supply them to farmers who’ve been forced to waste crops.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, I sometimes struggle to find some ray of hope, some lesson that we may have overlooked that we might carry with us when it’s all over.
