Since late June, new COVID-19 cases have skyrocketed in Alaska and in our community. Public health authorities continue to recommend a combination of social distancing and wearing face coverings as the most effective way to prevent the spread of the virus.
Starting Monday, we will require all customers and guests to wear a face covering in our store. Whether a cloth or paper mask or a scarf or bandanna, the face covering must be worn at all times and must cover both the mouth and nose. The only exception is for children ages 5 and younger.
If you forget to bring your mask, we will provide one. Stop at the Customer Service desk before shopping. If you prefer not to wear a mask or have a medical condition that makes it impossible, we do offer reasonable accommodation by shopping for you through our Curbside Grocery Pickup program. There is no charge for this service.
Our employees have been required to wear masks while working since early April. We wear our masks to protect you, and your masks will help protect us.
While our shoppers generally spend 10-20 minutes in the store once a week, most of our 30 employees work in the store five days a week, eight hours a day. We currently serve between 300 and 375 customers every day. This represents a significant potential exposure to COVID-19 for our staff, and we are determined to do everything we can to keep them – and you – safe.
Thank you for the care and concern you’ve shown our employees as we’ve adjusted to the challenges of operating during a pandemic. Maintaining a safe, welcoming shopping environment continues to be our priority, and we are grateful for the trust you’ve placed in us.
If you have questions or concerns, please contact Shaun Sims, Interim General Manager, or members of our Board of Directors.
How to Shop for Groceries During a Pandemic
• Wash your hands frequently and properly.
• Take care of your own health – and don’t come into the store if you’re sick.
• Come by yourself if possible, so fewer people are in the store at once. If you must bring someone else, have that person wait in the car while you check out. We have limited the number of shoppers in the store to 10.
• Help us help our vulnerable community members by being mindful of when you shop. We’ve reserved 8 to 9 a.m. Monday thru Saturday for seniors and medically vulnerable people.
• We are wearing masks to protect you. We would appreciate it if you would wear a mask to protect us.
• Bring a shopping list. Make your visit quick and purposeful.
• Try to stay at least 6 feet away from anyone who isn’t in your immediate household. We’ve put down yellow floor stickers to help you visualize the distance.
• Don’t be offended if an employee steps back when you’re talking. We’re encouraging staff to practice safe social distancing, too.
• Touch items only if you intend to buy them.
• Bag your own groceries if you bring your own shopping bags. We’ve got tables set up along the front windows to give you room to do this.
• Buy only what you need so that your neighbors can get what they need, too. We have to limit purchase on some products, such as toilet paper.
• Be kind – to other shoppers, to our staff, and to yourself.
Updated Temporary Store Hours
Now that business has returned to a more normal pace, we’re adjusting our store hours to better meet the needs of our shoppers. We will continue to reserve a shopping hour for seniors and medically vulnerable people, and we are maintaining a rigorous cleaning schedule. Effective today, our new hours are:
Monday thru Saturday
• 8 to 9 a.m. — reserved shopping hour for seniors/medically vulnerable people
• 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. — open to the general public
Sunday
10 a.m. to 7 p.m. — open to the general public
We no longer need to take a two-hour break midday for cleaning and stocking. We found that many people were confused by it, and we were turning lots of shoppers away.
We are continuing our heightened cleaning schedule throughout the day, and we’ll be closing one hour earlier to do more deep cleaning and stocking for the next day. In addition, we have contracted with a professional cleaning service to take care of the heavier work.
We are so grateful to our community. Your patience and loyalty have helped us make the changes necessary to keep our employees (and you) safe. Thank you!
COVID-19 Update: New Checkout Procedure
In our small store, it’s hard to maintain the recommended 6-foot separation at the registers, so to help keep our cashiers (and you) safe from the coronavirus, we’re instituting some new checkout procedures.
1. Unload your grocery cart or basket onto the conveyor belt on the checkout stand.
2. Immediately take your cart or basket to the end of the register stand, where bagging normally happens. Wait there.
3. The cashier will ring up your items and place them back into the cart or basket.
4. When the cashier indicates they’re finished ringing up, return to the keypad to pay for your groceries.
5. Take your purchases to the tables we’ve set up at the front of the store for self-bagging. We’ll keep boxes stored under the tables as well as on the shelf for your convenience.
If you don’t have enough items for a basket or cart, we still ask that you wait at the end of the register until the cashier is finished ringing your items up.
You can also help keep your neighbors safe by maintaining distance between yourself and other shoppers when queuing up to check out.
Under normal circumstances, we are very happy to bag your groceries for you, but right now maintaining social distance is critical to keep everyone well and working. Thank you for helping us stay safe.
New Temporary Store Hours & Other Changes
Changes to Store Hours
Starting Monday, we are introducing a shopping hour exclusively for our 60+ and medically vulnerable community. We are also temporarily shortening our store hours to allow us to do focused intensive sanitization, in addition to our already stepped-up cleaning.
Here are our new hours.
Monday thru Saturday
8 to 9 a.m. – Reserved for seniors and people who are medically vulnerable
9 a.m. to 1 p.m. – Open to the general public
1 to 3 p.m. – Closed for midday cleaning and restocking
3 to 8 p.m. – Open to general public
Sunday
10 a.m. to 7 p.m. (no change)
In addition, we will be closing the store to the public next Tuesday, March 23, for one day only. This is to allow our staff to take a breath and focus on cleaning and stocking.
We hope this is a good schedule, but if necessary, we may change it again. It’s hard to know what to expect right now for both customer demand and product supply, so we’ll all have to be flexible.
Special Orders
We are temporarily discontinuing our special orders for individuals. We will continue to place orders for our business Owners. Our staff simply cannot keep up with the demand, and our supply is unpredictable. Many people are trying to order products we simply cannot get because of national shortages. When we do receive cases of these items, we need to put them on the shelves to be fair to everyone. We’ll bring special orders back when things stabilize.
Bulk Department
To ensure your safety, we will be removing our reach-in bulk foods bins and repacking those items in 1, 2 and 5-lb. packages. Please be patient, as repacking will take time, and we are waiting for delivery of the bags we need.
COVID-19: Precautions We’re Taking
We know that people in our community are rightfully concerned about COVID-19, the novel coronavirus, and we take the health of our shoppers and staff seriously.
We already have many procedures in place to reduce the spread of foodborne illness and seasonal colds and flu every year. These include safe food handling procedures, cleaning and sanitation protocols, and training.
In addition, here are some extra steps we have taken to keep our co-op healthy.
- We’ve stepped up how often we sanitize frequently touched surfaces, including freezer and cooler door handles, shopping cart handles, tables and chairs, bathrooms, counters, and keypads.
- We have closed our deli seating and discontinued our hot soup and beverage offerings. We are focusing on preparing more packaged soups, sandwiches, salads, breakfast burritos and desserts for you to enjoy at home.
- We have temporarily discontinued our Co+op Explorers free fruit program. (This program allows children to eat a piece of fruit while their parents shop.)
- We have temporarily removed testers from our Wellness aisle.
- We have temporarily discontinued our sampling program.
- We are reminding employees to be vigilant about proper handwashing and to do it often.
- As always, we are asking anyone with cold or flu symptoms to stay home. Our employees do earn paid time off to use for sick leave or vacation.
Unfortunately, we have been forced to close our bathrooms to the general public. We must conserve toilet paper and cleaning supplies to maintain sanitary conditions for our employees. Employee cleanliness is vital to ensuring proper food handling and the safety of our shoppers.
Many items remain out of stock, including hand sanitizer, household cleaners, toilet paper and some bulk foods. There are widespread shortages of these items, but we are continuing to order them and will get them back on the shelves as soon as possible.
Shortages of our regular cleaning products mean that we must use some that contain chemicals we wouldn’t normally employ, such as chlorine bleach. We know that some of our shoppers are sensitive to fragrances, and many of these products are scented. We want to assure you that we will return to our usual cleaning supplies as soon as we can get them. In the meantime, we are making sure to use only products approved by the CDC as effective against viruses.
Please know that we are closely monitoring the situation and are following instructions and recommendations issued by public health authorities and government agencies. We will continue to provide information and updates about our COVID-19 response on this blog.
Here are some sources for up-to-date, accurate information on the coronavirus.
