A special message from Excalibur’s president about the COVID-19 pandemic.

To all our valued Customers and Suppliers,

 

It is hard to see it from here, but this highly acute time will pass, and we’ll all be back to normal soon. Excalibur, like every company we partner with, is dedicated to minimizing the impact of COVID-19 on our employees, customers, and vendors. Illinois’ Governor issued a “Stay in Place” order effective March 21, 2020. Rest assured, as an Essential Service company, Excalibur is continuing to fill and ship orders.  We have had to take extra precautions just as you have, and we don’t mind sharing them if they may be helpful to you.

 

Here are a few of the main initiatives we have taken:

• Our sales staff has been pulled off their routes and working from home since 3/16/20
• We have cancelled all business travel and visitors to our facilities
• We have relocated many office positions to a work from home set up
• Instituted daily sanitizing practices within our office, including a scheduled “stop & sanitize” with every employee
• Increased our staff meetings to twice a week and we are holding all-employee meetings twice a week
• Randomly taking the temperature of all employees at least once a day
• We have increased our staffing to buffer any absenteeism
• Started “distancing” practices within our facility, including making production physically longer to allow workers to distance themselves from each other as much as possible
• We are communicating daily with our suppliers to avoid any disruption in our supply chain
• Using telecommunication within our facilities instead of in person meetings when possible

 

What has helped us immensely during the COVID-19 challenges has been our Safe Quality Food culture we live day in and day out at Excalibur. We have always been very proud to carry the SQF Institute’s highest rating of Food Safety and Food Quality. Our sanitation has always been a priority for us.

 

The additional steps we have taken to sanitize our facility have been incremental, not major. Our in-place systems allow us to have the proper accountability and verification in place to do so.  Even so, this entire process is a learning one, and we have documented our meetings and additional processes to make our SQF program even stronger.

 

At the end of every meeting, I ask our staff and employees if there is anything they think we could, or should, be doing in order to take this threat more seriously. Collectively we don’t think there is anything left to address, but just continue to adapt to the ever-changing situation. We are looking ahead as far as possible, and we see no reason why you would not continue to receive the same high-quality product from us, on time and in the quantity you need. If you have any questions during this unprecedented time, please do contact us.

 

We thank you for your partnership in business. We know how hard you are working to keep America’s shelves filled because we’ve seen it first-hand.  We’ll see you in person on the other side of this.

 

Sincerely,

Tom Hornstein, President/CEO
Excalibur Seasoning Company