US: New York City - COVID-19 Update - All Schools Closed
Clearly, we are in exceptional times with COVID-19. As a business, we need to think differently.
Our priority is to ensure our team’s safety as well as the safety of the wider community. The single best way to do that is to enforce social distancing. The simplest way to do that is for everyone to work from home.
However, we are also a company that produces food. We have farms and farmers, and we can grow food to feed people. No one knows exactly where this situation is heading, but we’re already seeing supermarket shelves emptying in New York. Sooner rather than later, food supply will surely become an issue. So it feels like we have a moral obligation to use the resources we have—skilled farmers and our farm-tech platform—to keep growing food, and to find ways to get that food to as many people as possible.
We have analyzed the situation carefully and determined that there is a way to balance both objectives—i.e. to keep growing food, in a safe way for our team and others. But it requires changes in our operations and the day-to-day workflow on our farms. For example, we have decided to stop the time-intensive and people-intensive task in our current process of packing harvested food into small clam shells, ready for retail distribution. Instead, we are going to pack quickly in bulk bags (as always, with gloves and love).
Any farmers or other staff not absolutely required to manage our temporary, slimmed-down operation at our Brooklyn campus, have been asked to stay at home on full pay.
This week, you will not find Square Roots packaged products on the shelves of retail grocery stores in New York City. Instead, to get the food we grow to people who need it most, we have decided to extend our existing partnership with ReThink Food NYC - who are safely creating meals for those in need from their kitchens in the Navy Yards. On Monday, we are going to donate *all* the food we harvest in Brooklyn to them.
Follow along on our social media for additional updates regarding our New York and Michigan campuses. Stay safe, everyone.