Safeway says coronavirus outbreak at California center poses no threat to groceries
Safeway says there is no threat from food or packaging shipped from its Northern California distribution center after one of its worker died from coronavirus and 51 others working there were infected.
“The Food and Drug Administration states that there is no evidence to suggest that food produced in the United States can transmit COVID-19,” Safeway spokeswoman Wendy Gutshall said in a statement. “The FDA also states that currently there is no evidence of food or food packaging being associated with transmission of COVID-19.”
The statement follows confirmation Thursday that a worker at the Tracy center, the chain’s largest facility, had died of complications from COVID-19 and that 51 people there had tested positive.
The grocery chain confirmed the death and reports of the virus among its roughly 1,700 employees at the 2.2 million-square-foot center, which is 50 miles east of San Francisco and 50 miles south of Sacramento.
“We were saddened to learn that an associate at our Tracy Distribution Center has passed away due to complications related to COVID-19,” a Safeway spokeswoman said in a statement Thursday. “Our hearts are heavy, and our thoughts are with that associate’s family. This is difficult for the entire Safeway team.”
The statement goes on to say that Safeway is working to help the victim’s family “during this difficult time through the Safeway Foundation’s We Care program – a charitable program designed to support our associates during unanticipated financial hardships and emergencies.”
The man’s family identified him to The Modesto Bee on Thursday as Pedro Zuniga, 52, of Turlock. He died Monday.
‘It happened to our family’
Zuniga’s son, Jose Valencia, told The Modesto Bee that people need to be serious about COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus.
“I was one of those that, you know, (thought) it doesn’t happen. It just happened to other people. And it happened to our family,” he said.
Zuniga, who became a U.S. citizen decades ago after emigrating from Mexico, is one of four people in Stanislaus County to die of the disease.
Valencia, who lives in Georgia, told the paper he is heartbroken because he wasn’t able to see his father before he died. Safety protocols also barred Zuniga’s wife, other four children and three grandchildren from visiting, though they were able to speak with him via telephone before his death Monday night.
Zuniga’s family is accepting funeral donations on GoFundMe and had raised more than $26,000 as of Friday morning. The family has been amazed at how people they don’t know have offered support, too.
“He was a well-loved man,” Valencia said. “They (the donors) have gone above and beyond. We are just very grateful with the help.”
FDA says coronavirus not spread through food
The Food and Drug Administration says there is no evidence that COVID-19 can be spread through food from grocery stores, even if it has come into contact with a worker infected with the virus.
“Unlike foodborne gastrointestinal viruses like norovirus and hepatitis A that make people ill through contaminated food, SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, is a virus that causes respiratory illness,” Frank Yiannas, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for food policy and response, said in a post on the FDA website. “This virus is thought to spread mainly from person to person. Foodborne exposure to this virus is not known to be a route of transmission.
“For these reasons, we do not anticipate that food products would need to be recalled or withdrawn from the market for reasons related to the outbreak, even if a person who works in a human or animal food facility (e.g. a food packager) is confirmed to be positive for the COVID-19 virus.”
Newsom discloses infections
Earlier Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the state’s food and grocery workers will receive two weeks of supplemental paid sick leave during the coronavirus emergency at his daily press briefing.
The statewide executive order applies to food sector workers, including grocery, fast food, delivery and farm workers of companies with more than 500 employees who are impacted by COVID-19, according to Newsom’s office.
It was during the daily briefing that Newsom confirmed a number of employees at the warehousing center had been infected while answering a question about some essential food workers who may fall into a gap of inadequate sick-leave pay.
“We have example in San Joaquin Valley right now at a very large food distribution center, where we have 51 positives,” Newsom said. “One individual has passed away in a facility that has over 1,700 workers.”
Late Thursday, the company confirmed to the Associated Press that “3% of our approximately 1,700 associates at the Tracy Distribution Center has tested positive for COVID-19.”
Safeway, which is owned by Boise, Idaho-based grocery giant Albertsons, said all employees at the Tracy warehouse would undergo thermal temperature readings and a health screening before entering the facility.
Distribution center curtailing operations
Meanwhile, Gutshall said the Tracy Distribution Center’s produce warehouse is short on staff “for a variety of reasons.” She said the company was streamlining operations “to ensure that our stores are still able to be supplied with the necessary order for our customers.”
Gutshall said the distribution center will run on streamlined operations “for the time being,” as the company works to “secure additional resources.”
“The health and safety of all our associates is our top priority,” Gutshall said in an email statement. “Once we learn of a positive diagnosis, we thoroughly clean and disinfect all locations and touch points that the associate may have come into contact with. That is in addition to enhanced measures in place to clean and disinfect all departments, restrooms and other high-touch points of the distribution center throughout the day.”
She said Safeway is closing all common areas and encouraging workers to take lunches and breaks by themselves. All employees are now required to wear masks, she said.
The facility, the size of 33 football fields according to Food Logistics magazine, serves more than 250 stores in California and Nevada, as well as 19 locations in Hawaii, and ships some 14 million cases a month.
Shortage of several grocery items, including produce, have been reported throughout Northern California, from the Bay Area to Sacramento. But it wasn’t known if it was related to the virus breakout at the Tracy Distribution Center or to the streamlined schedule in the center’s produce department.
Shortages have also been noted for the past several weeks at several other grocery chains.
This story was originally published April 16, 2020 at 7:36 PM with the headline "Safeway says coronavirus outbreak at California center poses no threat to groceries."
