A letter to True North Granola’s amazingly wonderful, loyal and dedicated customers
To our Dear Customers:
We know that you, like all of us, are focusing intently on the Covid-19 virus and its potential impact on each of us, our families and friends and co-workers, and our country. So that you are aware of how one of your food producers is responding, we want to share our thoughts with you.
The Status of our staff and our shop.
- Our shop is open right now on a day-to-day schedule. If this changes, we will notify you.
- We have asked our staff to ‘take their temperatures’, both figuratively and literally. If anyone has a fever, a cough, or any type of respiratory illness, they are being told to stay home. This is not a new protocol for us. We have also told each staff member that if he/she does not feel comfortable coming to work, even if they are not ill, their decision to remain at home is totally acceptable with us.
- We have made the symptoms of Covid-19 known to our staff, and also shared we can transmit this virus even if we show no symptoms of it. Each of us can become an unwitting new carrier of Covid-19.
- We have adjusted staffing and reduced it almost in half so as to limit exposures to the outside world.
We hope we can bring them back before long. - Our environmental cleaning and sanitizing procedures have always been exceptional, and we have added to our daily protocols even more. Washing and sanitizing every surface in the shop (e.g. computer equipment, telephones, staplers), are just minor examples of what is getting daily attention in our shop, beyond everything else we do for all food surfaces, in general.
- We are now sanitizing every box that enters our shop with an approved organic sanitizer.
- We are no longer allowing any individual to enter our shop who is not a scheduled staff member.
- Suppliers will now ring the bell to our shop and be met outside in a dock area. Our staff members will greet them outside of the shop and move the pallet of ingredients into the shop themselves.
- Individually, we are practicing social distancing to the best of our ability and daily needs.
- We have intentionally removed ourselves from large trade shows, craft shows and other events until further notice.
- Franklin and Ingrid have also removed themselves from all non-essential regular and medical appointments (who wouldn’t want to cancel a dental appointment!)
The bottom line is that we have an incredible staff. They are in total compliance and agreement with everything we are doing as they work with us to generate the safest procedures we can. As orders continue to come in, we are doing our very best to meet your needs, with every one of these precautions in mind.
We know our products are important to you. It is our responsibility to do everything we can to support you, while following government and health department regulations, and by continuously educating ourselves about what we should be doing.
We also know that the stress of this pandemic is taking its toll on each of us in different ways. We are paying attention to this and intentionally communicating with one another in order to help both physical and emotional needs. The term ‘pandemic’ is scary, especially since none of us has lived through one, and especially given the potential risk factors that exist for some of us.
We wish you all the very best. We assume total responsibility for keeping our products safe. We assume all the responsibility we can for keeping one another safe, and for working in a healthy, clean, and virus-free environment.
We wish you all good health, best wishes, and fondness for being a part of the True North Granola family.
Ingrid and Franklin
