c-span radio app. >> "washington journal" continues. host: this is leslie sarasin >> this is leslie sarasin here to talk about food safety coronavirusng the pandemic. good morning. >> good morning. an ythank you for having me. >> can you talk about the food sectors your organization represents? >> we represent the breath of the food industry. iour histories in the retail ad wholesale sector,e but we represent companies thatvi provide products force sale in our stores as well as services that support the industry. >> are we talking localizedm

a grocery stores, big-box-type markets? what do you cover? >> we cover everything from a single store operator in bend, oregon to the largest brochures in the world. our bredth is significant. >> when it comes to food supplies for the vendors you represent, what is your area ofe concern. >> the concern is making sure we have the ability to take care of our associatessst in tho stories and that ourpp customers are safe when they are shopping in our stores. we have spent time andpent t resources on doing everything aa we can to ensure the safetyr of our associates and customers. >> as far as examples, what arew you recommending to those vendors? e e >> we have done a lot of things

in store to protect our customers when they aresame shopping. in some areas stores are limiting the number of people who can go into the store at the same time. once they get into the store, they will see a lot of dichangp differences then before covid-19. as they go into the aisles, they may find their groceries are doing one way aisles so there is less opportunity for interaction among shoppers, and to assist with maintaining the social distancing protocols that have been recommended by the centers for disease control. they will find when theynd the k out of the store that perhaps s there is a plexiglas shield between them and the omloves ca. that is to protect the cashierap and the customer. they will see most and stores areore wearing

protective equipment, masks and in some cases gloves if it seems there's a lot going on in the store specifically making itzing safer. we are doing things by closing our stores earlier than we normally do. but that has been able tores haw us to do is much deeperopping sanitizing and cleaning in the evening, so that when we reopen the next morning oure shoppers will be in a cleanerly t. environment. i would say it is helpful that many stores have created certain shopping times for our more vulnerable populations. shoppihostthose typically tend e early in the morning. so only those more vulnerable people in our populations are shopping at that time. >> the idea of masks and gloves, would your organization go as far as mandating the wearing of those someone wants to go grocery shopping? >> i don't know that there are rod mandates for that kind of thing.

there are some communities -- broad mandatesle the for that kf thing. there are communities that have perhaps mandated people in public where masks we awhile thy are shopping. wewe are following everything being recommended by the centers for disease control, and in areas where+++éy those as well. host: our guest will be with us until the end of the program. if you want to ask russians about food issues and supplies when it comes to -- ask questions about food issues and supplies when it comes to .rocery stores to what level is the organization recommending how to protect those employees at the grocery stores. y sto what level is the organization recommending how to protect those employees at the grocery store? >> we are working closely with our

companies, making sure they centers fo with thee recommendations are from ther el centers for disease control, helping them keep up with local land state regulation -- and state regulation, so we can help companies ensure they are meeting the most current advice recommendations on meeting the safety needs for our s customers and associates. >> specifically, how? >> we have daily phone calls every afternoon at 4:30 with representatives of our member we companies where we exchangenew n information and share ideas on new things that people are hearing, ways that companies customers.ng in ensuring the safety of their employees and customers. we have become a very important information sharing ver reposity for our membersve we have been

engaged in working with the federal government, and to some extent state and local government to help themal-life a understand how our industry functions so when they arehost: making some of these decisions they will understand what the real-life ramifications are for some off >> what is something you had to explain the federal people as far as things they may notgu understand? >> it is perhaps not that theyan don't understand, but indemi the midst of the pandemic they are not aware of. one of the issues when the cdcs began to recommendan the use of masks and other ppe in retail environments. one of the challenges we had was gaining access to that ppe. concerned

we all then this country have been very concerned with making sure the medical community had the best andly did most immediae access to personal protective equipment. makwe certainly didn't want to interfere with that, but to mat make sure that we could find access and help our companiesrty understand where they could gain access to those materials has been particularly helpful, i think. >> one of the things we havers seen advocated, particularly for front-line workers, is more pay during this time. there has bething your organization is advocating for? >> we have not been engaged as an organization. dividu deal of been a great media coverage o' decisions individual companies are making in that regard. as an organization we don't get involved in individual companies decisions. ncti>> owen is calling from grad junction, colorado.

our guest leslie sarasin of fmio from the food industry association. >> i was wondering -- thanks for taking my call -- i was us t wondering, wouldn't it be a thae good idea to support our local farmers that are around us to get the supply chain betweenn. the people and local farmers? i've got one more question. do they have a pressure washer by the cart corral to clean off the carts? if so, i mean, how come they didn't add wind into the equation for the distancing? >>e go ahead. >> the work with local farmers, the fact is that is happening quite widely in addition to the usual sourcing our retailers are doing.

in many, many instances theyto l are also sourcing products from local farmers. that is for a lot ofers reasons. ve ione is they want to support their local farmers. they believe it's important to do that. second of all, as resilient as our supply chain is and as beautifully as it has operated throughout this time, when there has been a shortage of certain products,loen a going directly to local farmers has been a tremendous opportunity for our retailers and wholesalers. all relationships areow strong and continuing to grow all the time.wi deregarding the cleaning of car, that is happening in ant ways widespread way. niesthere are lots of different ways that companies ares cleaning carts. your idea of using pressure washers is one i think being used extensively. among the things that our retailers are doing is making sure places that are high-touch are cleanedtoresas

as frequently as possible. asioin many occasions after onee by one customer. so obviously carts are one of those high-touch places. any other of the hard surfaces that exist within the store are of tremendous concern in making sure they are clean. >> what is the wiped downon's recommendations, including the food products themselves? do you think they need tot's be wiped down before they are put away in people's homes? >> i thi think that's a matter of personal preference. whatde we understand fromrsta cs that it's not necessary to do that. i know a lot of people areis concerned and do it. d anything,ing to hurt but our best e recommendation is it isn't't based on what we are hearing from the cdc and the fda.

>> peyton from northu carolina. >> i have one question. you said you supply food to grocers around the world. i'm wondering what placeses around the world experiencingngu extreme poverty should do to combat coronavirus. , i am not aly pu >> unfortunately, i am not a public health expert so i'm not sure i can give you a lot of advice on that front. obviously, the things beingre recommended in the u.s. i think would apply there as well, particularly related to social distancing, remaining home rather than being out in public. my suspicion is public healthth officials would osrecommend the same kinds of things in those areas as well. >> let's hear from lee and lee is from waldorf, maryland. am a>> good morning, guys. how are y'all doing?

i am a prepper, or as liberals say a hoarder. they use that word to hidede their shame that they are not taking care ofof themselves. one of the food handlers association, he was one of the bigwigs and said stop hoarding people. the food system isn't going to run out. it is resilient. you have to pay attention to what people don't tell you. he didn't say that the foodad system wouldn't becomey infected as time goes by. for my fellow americans -- i'm not sure what this young lady has said this morning -- but americans outard there, hoard plenty, hoard a lot, take care of yourselves. that's the responsibility of americans. the government tells you what they want you to hear. hoard, hoard plenty. it's the right thing to do. >> do you want to respond? >> absolutely. let me say thank you forll morn.

referring to me as a young lady. that's probably the best thingg i've heard all morning. regarding the purchasing of products, from my perspective and where i sit, i'm not sure who he is referring to as having heard someone else speak on this topic, but from what i understand through many years of experience in this industry, we indeed in this country have a tremendously resilient food supply. what we've been through in the last 60 days, for anyone who had any doubt about that, we would beirme affirmed completely and how resilient our supply chainn is. what we have experienced in the last 60 days has been a tremendous demand challenge rather than a supply challenge. that isn't to say there hasn't been experiences where there have been shortages on certain products, but by and large what we have beeneali dealing with i-

imagine it is the day before, or thanksgiving or the day before christmas eve, or someay other major family holiday where a lot of cooking is going on and shopping is going on. our companies can prepare for ao that because they know it's coming. 60 in this case we didn't just have one day like that. we've had about 60 days like that in a row. and not just in one part of the country, but every part of the country. naturally there has been pressure on the supply chain that is unprecedented in thisfi. country. think sometimes what we end up creating -- it has become ash self-fulfillingor prophecy. the more we talk about supplyly shortages, the more we incited to buy more, whichhi feeds into mores shortages. my best recommendation -- thisst is what i'm doing in myen own home and would recommend to your listeners, go to the

grocery store and buy what you need for your family. by what you need for the next o week or so, but perhapswa notro what you might need orm want sx months from now. if we all shop in that manner, t and if we arehe responsible and how we shop,nty i think there l be plenty to go around for all of us. when we are shopping we may not find exactly the kind of product we have been accustomed to buying. won'perhaps we won't find thepe product in a particular flavor or in exactly the size or packaging we are accustomed to. that is because of this tremendous demand we have been dealing with. guesi guess my message is there will be products that will meet your needs. ly w w you are accustomed to buying,g but it is a good opportunity to try new things. >> i'm sure you have been asked the question, why couldn't you

find toilett he t>> the toilet paper thing if one of those things that has i think astounded all of us. what happened with toilet paper i think is symptomatic of what happened with a lot of other products. ofpeople got concerned early on that there might not be enough of it and bought it in very large quantities. emanledthis unprecedented demand to shortages in many areas of the country full that the manufacturers of those products are workingng can to get the stocks re-shelved. >> we have seen the president order meet packaging organizations to keep working -- meat topackaging organizatis to keep working. >> i think the president was ur concerned about making sure

that we had an uninterruptedsup. meat supply. ki think what we were experiencing and have continued to experience to some degree are periodic and regional challenges in some of our meat processing facilities. what i understand is that the president wanted to make surele that companies could getan their facilities cleaned up. they had incidences of covid-19. get any of their employees who needed to be cared for medically taken of care of. keep the supply chain moving. our i think there are a lot ofre f changes going on in how our meat facilities are things functioning. they've done a lot of things that we have done in retailrs stores to achieve i social distancing among workers in the facilities. most of the facilities that. have had to close have now

reopened. we will be continuing to monitor what goes on in that segment of the business. >> this is leslie sarasin of as, the food industry association, there president and ceo. jeff from illinois, you are next up. go ahead. >> i had general concernsectitit the open items in the fruit and produce section the pepper's, the apples, thep when cherries,e grapes will stop when you recommend and i go shopping to feel safe to consume? should i soak them in s bath water and vinegar? what with those products? that question is an one.ortant e coco this among consumers around the country. we understand his covid-19 is not a foodborne illness. it is not typically something

you would get from eating a food product. that being said, any time you buy a product in an openmend container in a grocery store, if it is possible i wouldfor the recommend washing it. certainly that is what i do in my home. for the types of products you are concerned about, perhaps grapes, cherries, or products in open bins, take them home and wash them before you eat them. frankly o, you ought to bef theg that anyway. >> a lot of the grocery have delicatessens attached to them. what are the recommendations? >> a lot of those facilities have been closed for someiously. period of time. some of them are beginning to reopen with new types of products. perhaps products that are more packaged than they had been previously.

follow the directions of that yt is going on in your local store recommendingy are you do. assured that your local store is doing everything they possibly can to make sure that the food products they are selling for you are as safe as hey can possibly >> here is alicia from columbiat maryland. >> good morning, pedro and? leslie. could i do a shout out before i asked the question? f thank you so much for helping the navajo tribe, and i want also to say top of the morning to our irish brothers and sisters who have sent some money to the indian tribes and the navajos. i really, really do appreciate it. i think you are all beautiful. i wanted to ask if any meats --

i think you partiallyme answered part of my questionn meats where the workers had been infected, are the meats safe? i know you said to wash the fruits and vegetables. should we wash our meats before we use them? >> thank you, alicia. >> alicia, i don't think it is necessary to wash your meatt before you cook it. i'm assuming you're before talking about products that you would cook before you eat them. i itself will take care of any issues that might exist in the meat. saire, thas i said before, then would not be that you might get covid-19 from the meat. we do not believe it is a foodborne illness. other food safety there are other food safety concerns you would want to make

sure you are addressing by cooking. >> from connecticut, hello. ng.lori from connecticut. good morning. let's try deborah. deborah from dunn, north carolina. >> i am an employee of the iga. if i i was told if i did not w- i told my manager i did not want to work on theork register because the cashiers and the customers from the line behind us, that is not the six feet rule. ehini said i don't want to get n register 3 can i get on 5?et rhe said if you don't want to work on register 3 you need to go home and assume you are quitting. i said, i quit. i wonder what can i do?

there has to be someone i can go to to get this taken care of. i don't feel super safe working back to back toking customers. >> we've got your point. we will let our guest take the question. >> thank you, deborah. i'm sorry to hear that you had a bad experience in dealing with a grocery employer. one of the things we have done since the beginning of the pandemic is work closely with our companies to helpp them understand what theirr em responsibilities are in keeping their employees safe,e, and and hopefully that will be the case going forward with the employer you referenced. >> is there some type of who do' recourse for the grocery store workers who doesn'te want to put themselves in the position like the previous caller was talking about? s cagues>> it is my understandim

talking to member becompanies that if someone is uncomfortable working in a in ac particular place they would be d redeployed to another area of the store. >> are grocery stores unionized on a large-scale level? >> in our membership we arer about 50%. 50% union and 50% nonunion. s th>> as far as the stores themselves, do you thinkentualle practices will change after wec? eventually resolve the large issues of the pandemic? dohopp you think grocery shoppig in the future will change? >> i do. if youi think it will change. if you think about some of the already goingere on in the grocery industry, if e-commerce, for example. we know 25% of shoppers sinceop

the beginning of the pandemic have shopped for groceries online for the first time ever. anwe are assuming that some percentage of those people willd have had good enough pro experiences doing that that they may continue to want to shop online. we were already as an industry moving in thatlate direction toe prepared for the growth in collect store pickup and home delivery, where it istn available. would happen in ourover what r

guesstimation over the next five years. the coronavirus has had a tremendous impact on how weebehi relate to online shopping. wereof the things weor. anticipating we would be working towards over the next five years, we are there now. in five months we have realized things we thought we would work next fivever the years. i think there will bebe changes as it relates to how we shop. we had been observing shopping behavior. at fmi we have been tracking shopping behavior for 40 years. ing since the pandemic started rather than relying on our annual shopping survey, we have been doing it -- we started in the first month doing it every week, and we have gone to every other week in surveys of how shopper behavior is changing. y go twhat we are finding is tht there is a tremendous amount of change. s weth know people are shopping less frequently. when they go to the stores they are buying more products then they would normally shop for -- thanld n they would normally shp for. to whichdon't know going forward is the extent to which that will continue or people will revert back to their previous habits. we know consumers are shopping

at fewer stores than they used to. tour data for last year showed us that on average in a month every consumer who went grocery shopping would visit 4.4 stores per month. data from the last month or so t is that is down to one or two stores per month. we will have to see how this m experience has influenced the way our shoppers will behave going forward. >> marilyn from illinois. >> thank you for taking my call. i would like to ask, i don't drive. i am in my 70's and go once every two weeks to my local walmart. i am very cautious and i wear my mask and gloves will i would

like to ask her about fresh vegetables. i cai am a big vegetable eater d i have been afraidm, b to buy tm because i feeld bu like i can't wash everything n with soap and water. i rinse them, but i am kno concerned if i should buy them or not. >> what we know is the importance from a nutritionalve and health standpoint of consuming vegetables and fruit. i believe you should continue to enjoy your favorite fruits and vegetable. t ifi think it's perfectly safeo enjoy them from the produce department. i think you should wash them, but i would tell you that if we were in the middlehave of theth pandemic or not. i think you should washey them. if you're not comfortable doing that, you have other options. they may not be once you're accustomed to, but ing good

options. those would be in the frozen section where we haveve many frozen vegetables available. you can store them in youracce freezer so you don'tss have a problem of worrying about them going bad beforee you eat them. the same is true for canned products. those are readily available in the store and you can have access to fruits and vegetables that way if it makes you more comfortable. are>> sofia in sterling, virgi. >> can you hear me? i >> you are on. >> i just wanted you to clarify. i know there have been a coupler of callers who say they wash their products with vinegar or soap and water. shousethere was a doctor sayint you should wash your produce with soap and water. is that safe? will it penetrate the fruit? or should we just use water? >>o i am not a food scientist. i will tell you that upfront. sin my house i wash it with

water, thoroughly with water, but i don't use soap or vinegar or anything else. thei think you need to do whater makes you most comfortable. in my house, water ising some sf sufficient. >> if we are at the place where states are reopening and things are assuming some sort of normality, and i'm using that in a broad sense, what are you watching for? what are you keeping an eye on? >> we are keeping an eye on the supply chain and making sure that as people return to whatever our next normal is going to be, that we will be able to meet their needs andrend our grocery stores and the throughout the industry. we are doing a lot of things in shore up ourto

supply chain. i referenced earlier that onere of the things that you ducemay d when you go into the store is you won't find exactly the flavor or package everysizing yu are accustomed to. om omany ofreasons is our suppliers have reduced the number of sku'srequir they are producing because every time they change from it, one type of product tooduc another, it requs them to shut down the machinerya clean it, and run the next product. the fewer times they do that, the more products they can get out of the facility in a day's time. be wg to swe will be watching te our suppliers arer able to broaden the number of products they are producing, and making sure we could meet our customers'needs. i think we will see a number of the safety types of provisions we have employed in our stores stay with usswe for some time to come. i don't know if it will bewi forever, but we arell b getting more accustomed to having sneeze guards between get us and the cashiers. is probably not a bad e thing for everyone. >> have there been drops ingues:

foods from other countries? what about those supply chains? >> we have had no issues from o products coming in from othersi countries. one of the things we have been. making sureout is that the pandemic at th had as e impact on trade as it possibly can have. i think trade continues to happen. it is probably not at theello, d levels we are accustomed to, but trade is something we are where i focused on and making sure we cy can continue to function in this issue. >> jersey city, new jersey. >> hello, good morning. i am concerned about on my i orders. where i live in jersey city i can get all of my food through the computer and have throu it delivered to me. i have family members in the rural areas in the south, south carolina, georgia, and a lot of

have areas don'th delivery. to k the fi want to know what td industry is going to do aboutac that, because theyce can't acces food if they don't want to go store. question.s an interesting question. itit is something that isting te mentioned earlier we are focusing more on then we haverys been historically. it is interesting the evolution. u goif you go back to the early days of our history as anand industry, home delivery was the way to shop. you go back severalcts, generat, that is the way it was done. availawe moved away from that be people wanted to go to into the

supermarkets themselves and own products, and buy what torethey want, and see what's available. i think we were beginning toe to move more towards home delivery and lots of areas of the country already even before the pandemic, mostlycts as an issuf convenience. it's sometimes hard to get to the store. people are busy, they don't have time, and it's a the thin convenience to have it delivered. we will see how this pandemic affects that going forward. i think for many of us going to the store is the only place we get to go at vei think there are a lot of who want to go to the store because they want to get out of their homes, and they feel safe when we ha there because of all things done to protect them. i think as far as home delivery is concerned, that will be a regional and local decision stores will have to make based on what their customers would like them to goo do to serve thr needs.

>>uest we have a little bit of time. susan from hamburg, new york. we are short on time, jump in with your question or erycommen. >> good morning. my question is, i am disabled and have a difficult time getting to the grocery sstore, especially during the pandemic. iveri am on food stamps. odto use home delivery you are not able to use food stamps, so that's no help to elderly or disabled people. is anything going to be done in the future to rectify that? >> as a matter of fact, there is an effort underway. thwe are working closely with u.s. fda--who manage the snap program, the food stamp program you referenced. in many areas of the country they are applying to be able to do use snap dollars in an electronic format so you could orderto b online and use your fd stamp dollars. i think that is something that may be coming your way very soon, and i hope you will take

advantage of it. i>> leslie sarasin with fmi, their president and ceo. fmi.org is the website. today.nk you for your timeeo >> dr. anthony fauci at 10:00 on c-span3 if you want to see comments from him and members

>> now, author and calvin coolidge presidential share, -- discusses the unintended consequences of government intervention during an economic crisis. she says, the current economic situation is best compared to the financial crisis which follows world war one and the spanish flu. from the heritage foundation, earlier this week, this is about 45 minutes. >> i'd like to invite our to special guests joining me on the screen, stepman and amity shlaes. i invite them to turn on their cameras. jay lee signal of cohost of the podcast. he is also the author of the book, warren history, the conspiracy r