In the wake of shelter-in-place orders, grocery stores — considered essential businesses — are now among the few places shoppers can go to stock their pantries. But empty shelves and large gatherings of people are also a major issue of concern for shoppers and health officials alike.
What precautions should I take while grocery shopping?
New research suggests that while the virus can survive on cardboard for a day and on plastic for several days, it becomes less infectious over time.
“It’s not to say that the risk of [contracting it at] the grocery store is zero, it’s just the risk of getting something from groceries themselves is relatively low,” says Dr. Anne Liu, an immunologist at Stanford Health Care. “The main places to be worried about are places where people get together and crowd, or surfaces that a lot of people touch.”
Rather than worrying about touching a can of beans or a tomato, Liu says, pay attention instead to your proximity to other people, especially if they’re showing symptoms, because that is the main way the virus is transmitted.
According to the World Health Organization, people who have contracted COVID-19 can spread it by touching their faces and other surfaces, so washing hands thoroughly before and after grocery shopping is crucial.
Liu recommends wiping down grocery cart handles and using hand sanitizer after using credit card machines. If you are worried about your grocery items, she recommends wiping them down with food-safe wipes or produce wash.
What precautions should I take with food I purchase to prevent contracting the coronavirus?
The Food and Drug Administration is reassuring consumers that there’s no evidence of coronavirus transmission through food or food packaging, but for those concerned, you can find some tips on handling groceries here.
Produce should always be washed, even when there’s not a pandemic, says Ronald Fong, CEO of the California Grocers Association. But now more than ever, he says, it is critical to wash your hands with warm water and soap for 20 seconds before and after preparing fresh produce.
He does not recommend keeping groceries outside, especially for temperature-sensitive food, although non-perishable products, like packaged toilet paper and canned goods, can be kept in a sanitized area for a few days.
Fong also recommends washing reusable bags and limiting shopping trips to reduce amount of contact with other people.
The FDA has recommendations on how to properly clean your produce here.
I’m seeing empty shelves at my grocery store. When will things be restocked?
Most market experts say the reason we’re seeing so many empty shelves in supermarkets is because people are overbuying, not because there is a supply shortage.
Supermarkets are seeing an unprecedented demand for products in addition to increased store traffic, according to Laura Strange, a spokeswoman for the National Grocers Association.
“The amount of product, whether it’s general merchandise [or] paper products to the food supply, is intact. It’s plentiful,” Strange says.
The main issue, she says, is that distributors can’t get the products to grocery stores fast enough because of the “new shopping pattern that customers have displayed over the past few weeks.”
In other words, because people have been hoarding certain high-demand items, it makes it seem like there is a shortage.
In the past month, sales of shelf-stable items like beans, rice, pasta, peanut butter and canned meat have increased dramatically, according to data from the research firm Nielsen.
“We’re seeing some customers that are literally buying for three months or six months. … If we continue this type of shopping pattern, there’s no way our distribution channels can catch up with that kind of volume,” Fong says.
According to UNFI, one of the largest food distributors in the United States, some warehouses are running at 200% of their average capacity for this time of year.
Fong says grocery distributors need a couple of weeks to get things back to normal. So the next time you go shopping, Fong recommends buying enough to get through the week, but also making sure to leave enough for others.
