At Mom’s Meals, the health of our clients, partners, and employees is paramount. Whether in response to natural disasters or the coronavirus (COVID-19), Mom’s Meals is fully prepared to continue to meet our customers’ needs, including for clients who may have limited ability to leave their homes in the coming months.
Company-wide COVID-19 Response
We continue to actively monitor the guidance from public health and regulatory agencies for COVID-19-related risks and prepare accordingly. We have enacted our formal Business Continuity plans, and are also taking extra precautions to ensure ongoing continuity of services to deliver meals into clients’ and members’ homes.
- Supply Chain Readiness. Mom’s Meals consistently maintains close connection with our suppliers to ensure we can proactively address any potential supply chain disruption. We are closely monitoring our inventory levels and do not see disruptions to our supply chain that will affect our ability to deliver meals to clients on schedule. We will continue to monitor the situation and work with our suppliers to address issues if any arise.
- Kitchen and Fulfillment Facilities. Mom’s Meals maintains two kitchen production facilities (IA and OH) and three fulfillment facilities (IA, OH, NV) that continually prepare, package, and distribute meals. Currently, the CDC advises food preparation is an extremely low risk mode of transmission. Regardless, Mom’s Meals continues to reinforce our GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) Policy with kitchen and fulfillment teams – including strict requirements for handwashing and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). In addition, we have instituted additional cleaning, disinfection, and sanitizing efforts, including increasing the cleaning of frequently touched surfaces. Quality Assurance staff conducts equipment pre-operational inspections every morning to assure efficiency and efficacy of the Cleaning/Sanitation Program. USDA/FSIS Inspectors verify this program daily. EHS team audits each facility to ensure compliance with cleaning, PPE, and social distancing policies.
- Distribution Capabilities. Mom’s Meals delivers meals via 200+ home delivery drivers regionally located throughout the United States. All Mom’s Meals drivers received training on safe distancing from members, use of handwashing and hand sanitizers before and after delivering meals, not reporting to work with sign of illness per CDC guidelines. We also use third party carriers such as FedEx, UPS, and other regional carriers to deliver meals. These third party carriers provide nationwide coverage and an overarching model that can support our entire business if there are interruptions with any of our local drivers.
Meals Access
We are fully prepared to take action when necessary to ensure continuity of access to the meals our clients need, including those who may have limited ability to travel outside their homes for several months. Mom’s Meals will continue to deliver meals to individuals that have tested positive for COVID-19.
Workforce Planning
The Mom’s Meals senior leadership team is currently meeting on a regular basis with front line staff to monitor and manage the unfolding COVID-19 situation. To date we have implemented the following processes in an effort to limit the spread of COVID-19 and maintain the quality and continuity of our operations:
- Commercial travel has been restricted.
- We have restricted non-employee access to all of our facilities.
- We have enacted our Work from Home policy for our non-production staff. This policy allows >80% of our Customer Care, Intake, Billing and Corporate functions the ability to work from home.
- As an essential provider, Mom’s Meals is continuing aggressive hiring practices to ensure adequate staffing. We are closely monitoring staffing of all of our positions and are in constant communication with our internal human resource team along with our external staffing partners regarding staffing needs.
- Our home delivery drivers use Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) when making a delivery. This PPE includes gloves and face masks. They have also been instructed to use hand sanitizer before every delivery and to use alcohol wipes to sanitizer their vehicle.
- To follow CDC Social Distancing recommendations we have instructed our home delivery drivers to not enter customers’ homes when delivering meals.
- We have implemented a questionnaire and temperature screening process prior to an employee or vendor entering each of our facilities.
- If working in one of our facilities, employees are required to wear necessary PPE at all times unless eating. We have also posted social distancing guidelines throughout each of our facilities and have limited the number of employees in conference rooms and at tables for eating.
- We have developed a decision tree-based on CDC guidance to determine how long an employee should stay away from work based on testing positive for COVID-19, having been exposed to someone who has tested positive for COVID-19, or has symptoms of COVID-19. This decision tree provides us guidance if an employee should be away from work 72 hours or up to 14 days.
- Management meets frequently to review our employee COVID-19 tracker to manage and anticipate any impact on our business operations.
Additional Precautionary Measures
In planning for the continuations of COVID-19 throughout the Fall and Winter, we have also instituted the following measures:
- Providing ongoing information to ALL team members on the critical importance of good hygiene (e.g., regular hand washing, covering coughs and sneezes) and staying home if sick.
- Reinforcing our GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) Policy with kitchen and fulfillment teams – including strict requirements for handwashing. Mom’s Meals has also implemented Social Distancing measures at each or our facilities to limit employee interaction.
- Educated employees on proper CDC recommended social distancing practices.
- Instituted additional cleaning, disinfection, and sanitizing efforts, including increasing the cleaning of frequently touched surfaces.
We are continuously monitoring the national coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, reviewing guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and World Health Organization, and monitoring the environment for COVID-19 related risks. Per our Business Continuity Plan, actions are in place to prevent disruption in service to our members.