In a letter sent to its email subscribers on April 19, AeroFarms co-founder and CEO David Rosenberg detailed the company’s plans amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“As we continue to monitor COVID-19 (coronavirus) developments, we want to emphasize the importance of taking care of ourselves, our loved ones, and our customers,” the letter read. “As a food producing company, we believe we have a greater societal obligation to feed people particularly during these times of need when we see empty food shelves at the markets. We want to take a moment to acknowledge the hero’s work that our selling partners are doing, staying open, and ensuring access to food and supplies. We join them with a resolute resolve to continue our farm operations to grow safely, locally, every day of the year. “
“We especially want to thank our team for their incredible commitment. Thank you, thank you, thank you – only begins to capture the gratitude we have for our team of over 165 people, all aligned with making a positive impact. We are very appreciative of how the team is balancing everything particularly on the home front with family and closed schools. We are proactively working on appropriate coverage strategies to ensure continuity of our farm.”
AeroFarms action items were listed as follows:
- Closing our facilities to only essential personnel.
- Reminding team members to stay home from work if they are sick.
- Evaluating every team member with an infrared thermometer before accessing our farm.
- Sending home any team member who is symptomatic.
- Implementing heightened sanitation practices that includes making sure surfaces and work areas are being sanitized multiple times every day.
- Installing additional hand sanitation stations.
- Reinforcing our existing training on effective handwashing and the use of personal protective equipment.
- Asking team members who have traveled to impacted areas to self-quarantine for 14 days.
- Promoting working from home where possible and limiting face-to-face meetings.
- Equipping our drivers with more sanitation supplies in addition to their practice of replacing their food safety gloves after each delivery.
- Automating Accounting including electronic payment and emailing of invoices.
- Ensuring our supply chain and farming inputs to be able to operate without any interruptions.
Rosenberg also noted that the company is audited for Good Agriculture Practices and Good Manufacturing Practices in additional to team members being of the Produce Marketing Association’s Board of Directors and the members of the Controlled Environment Agriculture Food Safety Coalition.