Essential Workers Save the Day in Supermarkets
In partnership with: Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.
Along with health-care workers, first responders and teachers, the COVID-19 pandemic shined a light on another category of heroes and essential workers: grocery store workers. Essential grocery workers across Wisconsin rise to meet safety protocols and health challenges.
Essential Workers are Supermarket Superheros
“When grocery stores were named essential workers and businesses among the shutdowns, you saw an amazing reaction by retailers with no playbook for how to handle this,” says Brandon Scholz, president and CEO of the Wisconsin Grocers Association (WGA). “Grocers’ natural instinct was to protect customers and the workforce, so right away, they started implementing masks, gloves, distancing floor decals, plexiglass barriers at checkout and sanitizing carts. They had to figure out how to adapt to government mandates like shutting down salad bars and other self-serve stations. Someone still had to serve that, so how did you do it? It was an operational change.”
While many other industries were forced to tell their employees to stay at home, grocers and grocery store workers had no choice but to adapt. Quickly, Wisconsin stores began shifting hours so that people at a higher risk of contracting COVID-19 could come during less crowded times. They also had to shut down stores at night to sanitize and restock what they could, even amid supply chain disruptions and product shortages.
“These essential workers continued to do their jobs,” Scholz says. “That often got taken for granted, but they made the necessary changes in their workforce to accommodate others.”
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Sustaining the Shortage
The shortage of products – including toilet paper and hand sanitizer – won’t soon be forgotten, and Scholz says that supply was a massive challenge for grocers throughout the pandemic.
“There were lots of shortages on the manufacturing side of things where they didn’t have enough ingredients to make products,” he says. “Instead of 22 brands of laundry detergent, now there were only six on the shelves.”
Another major disruption occurred in the meat industry. As some meat processors had to temporarily shut down because of challenges brought on by the pandemic, smaller butcher shops worked quickly to try and keep livestock moving through the supply chain. To help grocers connect with suppliers, the Wisconsin Department of Trade and Consumer Protection developed a searchable database that provided store operators with the names of meat processors who had product available to sell.
“It was a really great way to help both parties stay viable and create relationships,” Scholz says.
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Hope on the Horizon
As COVID-19 vaccination rates continue to rise across the country and in Wisconsin, Scholz says the grocery industry is encouraging its essential workers to make informed decisions.
“A stable workforce has been a huge challenge over this past year,” he says. “I think grocers are going to continue to be diligent on wellness. We won’t see plexiglass or social markers coming down for a while.”
He adds that the online sale of groceries has continued to grow rapidly, even as the pandemic subsides. Scholz continues to discuss issues like these and others concerning Wisconsin grocers on his podcast, Grocer Cast. The podcast was initially an idea to help reach a wider audience, but in the days of COVID-19, it became an invaluable resource for the WGA.
“It was an opportunity to reach a different segment and the next generation of grocery store owners,” he says. “Now we’re using it to help the transition from 2020 to 2021. Retailers are facing new challenges every day, and we can provide resources.”
The WGA also made sure online resources were updated daily with best practices, signage, capacity limits, mask mandates, HR recommendations and anything else retailers needed to know.
“Whatever was relevant to grocers in Wisconsin was all we cared about,” Scholz says. “We made sure we were staying relevant and current to help as much as we could.”