COVID-19: PROPOSAL FOR THE FOOD RETAIL INDUSTRY

Objectives

1. Reduce the number of people in supermarkets and the consequent risk of contagion;

2. Convert store purchases to online and telephone channels;

3. Facilitate access to essential goods;

4. Ensure the easy availability of essential goods to the elderly, health professionals and other essential professionals;

5. Shorten home delivery times;

6. Expedite order preparation and respective logistics/home deliveries;

7. Reduce the burden on workers in the food distribution and logistics sector;

8. Restore food purchasing habits.

Verified issues

The huge increase in demand for essential goods bears several consequences:

1. Both customers and employees are at high risk of infection;

2. Due to high traffic, online stores have congested accesses and operating problems;

3. Supermarket (online) orders have been having extended delivery times;

4. In the short term, due to the huge demand, the average preparation time for each online custom order will be highly impractical;

5. Excess purchases (hoarding) create situations of inequality in the distribution of essential goods, namely to the elderly population, health professionals and other professionals who currently support the greater effort in this fight against the pandemic — and who don’t have enough free time to shop;

6. In this context, it is very difficult to ensure that the exact selection of a custom online order will actually be delivered, resulting that these supply failures will have implications on families' daily lives and their health;

7. The daily shelf stocking of stores at this scale and pace is unsustainable;

8. The teams that guarantee daily restocking are not immune to this infection and as a result, we will naturally see temporary store closures, worsening the problem locally.

Proposed solution

1. This proposal is to market and promote Pre-packed Essentials in the form of boxes + add-on boxes;

2. The boxes can be numbered, for example from 1 to 6, containing essential goods in increasing quantities;

3. The add-ons contain specific goods grouped by category and can be alphabetically ordered (A, B, C, D…): such as fresh groceries, toiletries, cleaning items, baby, bio, vegetarian/vegan, gluten-free/lactose-free, kosher, prepared meals (for those who can’t cook), etc.;

4. The hamper contents should be guided and determined by industry sector professionals aided by nutritionists, pediatricians and other relevant specialists;

5. The hamper contents must be shared publicly so that any store, small or large, can follow the same guidelines, thus promoting the easy adoption and use of this system by the population at large;

6. Prices will necessarily fluctuate because item/brand selection may vary from store to store and from week to week;

7. As the need for rationing is not expected, customers may continue to make individual custom purchases in stores and online;

8. By choosing Pre-packed essentials, the customers must be guaranteed in-store product availability and also a faster delivery for online purchases, thus making preparation and logistics of usual single purchases less of a priority;

9. Online shopping should continue to be both promoted and favoured in the immediate future as in the coming months to mitigate the risk of contagion;

10. If possible, stores may offer a combination of Pre-packed essentials with, for example, a maximum of 10 single items;

11. The Pre-packed essentials hamper handling must be carried out on assembly lines in accordance with the recent Health guidelines and the usual sector regulations, in order to reduce the risk of team contagion and product/packaging contamination;

12. The hamper assembly lines, simplified, can be guaranteed by external teams composed of new hires (e.g.: trainees), the military or volunteers;

13. The hampers can also be prepared remotely, away from stores, in food warehouses or in adapted spaces.

Updates:
v.1 — 26.03.2020
v.2 — 28.03.2020
v.3 — 27.04.2020
v.4 — 21.05.2020