The global coronavirus pandemic has vastly changed our daily habits. Your friends at the Partnership for Food Safety Education thank you for stepping up for your communities and have noticed the industry’s efforts to keep families safe and fed, and we are grateful.

Convenience retailers are well-versed in how to keep their stores clean and safe. Your employees can set another great example by practicing safe food handling and food safety protocols at home, ensuring their own families take action to reduce the risk of food poisoning.

The work environment has built in queues for handwashing; however, at home it may not always be so obvious when to wash hands. Here are some scenarios in which hand washing is recommended at home:

• Before eating food
• Before, during and after preparing food
• Before and after treating a cut or wound
• Before and after caring for someone who is sick
• After changing diapers or cleaning up a child who has used the toilet
• After handling uncooked eggs or raw meat, poultry or seafood (or their juices)
• After blowing your nose, coughing or sneezing
• After touching an animal or animal waste
• After touching garbage
• After using the toilet or assisting another with doing so
• If you use a smartphone device or tablet in the kitchen while preparing food, you should wash your hands after holding or touching the device.

Cleaning refers to the removal of food pieces and dirt, but a quick wipe down may not reduce the risk of coronavirus or food poisoning. It is important to sanitize surfaces to remove germs. Just like handwashing, it may be obvious at work when it is best to sanitize surfaces but challenging to know when to clean versus sanitize at home.

When you should clean:

• To remove dried food and spills from countertops
• To remove food from a stove top
• Wipe down interior refrigerator surfaces with hot water and soap

When you should sanitize:

• Someone sneezed on your countertop
• Someone sick touched your refrigerator door handle or faucet
• Raw meat juice spilled on countertop, stove, sink, floor or in the refrigerator
• Raw meat touched a countertop, stove top, sink, utensil or cutting board or shelf in your refrigerator

Coronavirus is a respiratory illness and is not known to be transmitted through food or food packaging, per the CDC. It just so happens that safe food handling steps also help to reduce the risk of coronavirus.

Currently, there is quite a bit of misinformation on food packaging and food handling. Some are advising people to disinfect food packaging or leave food in the garage to kill coronavirus. Some of the steps recommended by well-meaning bloggers could result in chemical and food poisoning for some. We recommend the following food handling guidance.

• Food delivery: Use the contactless, “leave-at-my-door” option. Wash hands before and after handling delivered food; eat or refrigerate delivered food within two hours; and eat leftovers within three days.
• Meal kits: There is no need to wipe down the box or packaging. Wash hands before and after handling delivered food, and eat or refrigerate delivered food within two hours.
• Grocery shopping: Wash hands before and after shopping; wipe down the cart handle; maintain social distancing; and follow your store guidelines. Go home immediately; store food immediately; and wash hands. No need to wipe down packaging after you get home.
• Produce handling: Rinse under running water, and use a scrub brush or your hands to gently massage the produce. Pat dry with a clean towel. Do not use soap or bleach on produce, which can make you violently ill.

There are many resources available to you and your families for download, including food safety education information, from the Partnership’s website at www.fightbac.org. Also, check the latest coronavirus resources from NACS at www.convenience.org/coronavirus.

Across Louisiana, six ExxonMobil-branded wholesalers banded together to donate $13,000 in gas gift cards to health-care workers so they can continue their work fighting COVID-19 and get back home to their families. This builds upon ExxonMobil’s support of now 60,000 gallons of fuel for emergency response vehicles, as well as gas gift cards to hospital workers in Baton Rouge.

• Brother’s Petroleum donated gas gift cards to the Oschner Health Center. The 44 Brother’s Food Mart locations in the New Orleans area also gave out free two-piece chicken dinners to medical workers.
• Lard Oil donated gas gift cards to Our Lady of the Lake and North Oaks Hospital. The company also donated phone chargers to local hospital workers and distributed hand sanitizer produced by ExxonMobil to emergency responders across Louisiana.
• Popingo’s Convenience Stores LLC donated gas gift cards to Prevost Memorial Hospital, St. Elizabeth Our Lady of the Lake Ascension, Coastal Urgent Care, Ochsner Medical Complex, St. James Parish Hospital and Assumption Community Hospital.
• RA Collette Oil Co Inc. donated gas gift cards to the Woman’s Hospital in Baton Rouge.
• Rio Fuel & Supply donated gas gift cards to Ochsner St. Mary.
• WB McCartney Oil Company donated gas gift cards to Jackson Parish Hospital.

Holmes Oil Company Inc., operator of 26 Cruizers stores throughout central North Carolina and headquartered in Chapel Hill, donated $5,000 to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Meals on Wheels. These funds helped the nonprofit deliver meals to food-insecure and home-bound members of the community.

In May, Weigel’s employees delivered dozens of pizzas and donuts to local hospitals, hospital emergency rooms and fire stations in 11 counties throughout the Knoxville, Tennessee, area. Over a four-day period, the team made deliveries to 15 hospitals and 18 fire stations.

Working with the American Logistics Aid Network, Core-Mark International’s regional distribution center in Forrest City donated the use of several of its drivers, trucks and temperature-controlled trailers to deliver much-needed frozen and other perishable items to Arkansas residents. In May, the Core-Mark team transported donated food from Arkansas Foodbank’s warehouse in Little Rock to food pantries, soup kitchens, churches and other centers in a 33-county service area.