We are closely monitoring local and national reports on the evolving impact of COVID-19 and are following the guidance from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO) and applicable public health agencies.
Our Franchise locations have expanded their housekeeping and sanitization efforts in their stores. Each location is frequently disinfecting often-touched surfaces such as door handles, countertops, keypads and restroom surfaces.
We are asking all Franchisees and employees to follow the CDC guidelines to prevent the spread of the infection.
Our production facilities have always followed strict sanitization guidelines put forth by the Food Processing division of Manitoba Agriculture. Even though there has been no recommendation on the Provincial or Federal level to change our practices, we have taken it upon ourselves to increase our sanitization efforts throughout all our production facilities.
On top of the extra sanitizing measures that we’ve implemented in our Stores, we are also promoting physical distancing – and limiting the number of customers in our Stores at one-time. Signage is clearly posted at the entrance of all our Stores indicating their specific physical distancing policy.
We continue to adapt our delivery service as more news and information becomes available. We have implemented a “self-isolation” delivery policy, allowing us to safely deliver to a customer who is quarantined. This new policy states that we will not be returning empty bottles for any self-isolation customers just in order to reduce risk. We email the customer a copy of their invoice once the delivery is complete, so there is zero contact with said customer.
All delivery personnel are equipped with both antibacterial wipes and latex-gloves. We have also provided each of them with spray-bottle containing a food-grade sanitizing solution called Excelerate CIP, this allows them to disinfect bottles, door knobs, etc. while on their routes.
For over 43 years we have made customer-service our top priority, meaning we would carry water into the homes of our residential customers and assist them by placing the bottles where ever they requested. Our top priority at this time is to keep everyone safe by preventing the spread of infection, so we no longer entering the homes of any residential customers. We are instructing our residential customers to leave their empty bottles just outside their front door, and will leave the full-bottles in the same spot. A copy of the invoice is emailed to customer, therefore eliminating any contact.
We are being proactive with our commercial accounts by contacting them in advance and asking them to place empty bottles outside their office door – or as close to the door as possible. This is to reduce the distance our delivery personnel needs to travel inside the offices of our commercial accounts. We are no longer obtaining signatures from customers to eliminate the need for them to come in contact with the hand-held devices our delivery personnel utilize.
At this time, all of our stores are open for business during their regular hours to meet the needs of our customers. Should we become aware of any condition in any store that would make it unsafe, please rest assured that we’ll close the store immediately until those conditions have been addressed.