Western Pa. grocers try to keep customers, workers safe as government discourages shopping trips
Grocery stores around the Pittsburgh region continue to do all they can to keep customers and employees safe and healthy during an escalating coronavirus pandemic that prompted federal officials to warn people to avoid supermarkets.
Along with social distancing, at the top of the list for most area grocers is frequent cleaning.
“They’re very diligent about it. They understand how serious it is,” said Doug Sprankle, who operates the Sprankle’s Neighborhood Market in Leechburg. “We’re going through cleaner like it’s going out of style.”
Both his store and the one in Kittanning, operated by Ryan Sprankle, follow the same cleaning protocols.
Dayside cashiers get multiple breaks every hour to wash their hands and clean shopping carts, Doug Sprankle said. They also clean their registers about every five minutes.
Nightside employees, including cashiers and stockers, take on a more extensive cleaning regimen when the store is less busy, he said.
“They make sure every contact point, the registers or anything where people are really at, they wipe down. They wipe down shelves when they can,” Sprankle said. “At least four times a day, if not more, they try to wipe down all the handles on the coolers, cases. We constantly have people going around cleaning, just trying to keep the amount of contact services to a minimum.”
In addition to their regular cleaning and overnight deep cleaning procedures, all Giant Eagle and Market District stores are sanitizing commonly shared surfaces such as register belts and pin pads, freezer and cooler door handles, shopping carts and baskets, curbside totes, Scan, Pay & Go handheld devices and restrooms, spokesman Dick Roberts said.
The stores have also installed Plexiglas dividers and social distance floor indicators at checkouts, customer service areas and pharmacies.
Over the weekend, The White House coronavirus task force issued a warning against going out to buy groceries or medication based on forecasts that the pandemic would worsen over the next two weeks.
“This is the moment to not be going to the grocery store, not going to the pharmacy, but doing everything you can to keep your family and your friends safe,” warned Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator.
The Sprankle’s stores have tried to limit the amount of people inside by increasing their free home delivery and free curbside pickup services. The Leechburg store also closed its hot food case to keep people from eating inside.
“We really try to just keep people moving in and out of the store and not have a lot of people hanging around,” Sprankle said. “We’ve seen a lot of social distancing being followed by not only just our employees, but by customers.”
Sprankle said he hasn’t seen a decrease in business despite the warning. He has noticed, however, that customers are coming at different times and not as often. Instead of coming multiple times a week, they’ll come once a week and buy more items, he said.
“Instead of being concentrated, as far as everybody rushing at one time, it’s a lot more staggered,” he said.
Customers who have concerns about shopping at the stores should come in the morning or at night, when they are less crowded, or use the free curbside or delivery services, Sprankle said.
Community Supermarket, which has three locations in Harrison, Lower Burrell and Penn Hills, has been closing early to devote more time to overnight deep cleaning procedures.
“We have people scheduled for about two hours after the store closes in order to get everything cleaned and sanitized,” said Drew Englert, a manager at the Penn Hills store.
Employees sanitize handles, shopping carts, registers and pin pads during the overnight clean, as well as multiple times throughout the day.
“We close down registers throughout the day, even if there’s lines, just so we can get the whole thing sanitized,” Englert said.
Englert said his store saw a decrease in customers last week. Any impact due to the warning from health officials won’t be known until the end of the week.
“Last week was down about 1,000 transactions from a normal week,” he said.
The store has seen more online ordering, including 12 orders on Tuesday.
“It’s a lot for us, considering we just launched our site a few months ago,” Englert said.
At the Shop ‘n Save store in Youngwood, a rotation of workers several times a day, conduct a “laundry list” of cleaning “all the surfaces touched on by people,” said manager John Rohaley.
“We’re wiping down carts. We’re wiping down door handles,” and have been doing it since the coronavirus restrictions took hold in mid-March, Rohaley said.
At Greensburg’s two Shop ‘n Save locations, employees constantly clean surfaces and sanitize areas touched by both shoppers and workers — including shopping and stocking carts, handles, bathrooms and more.
“We are wiping down with a cleaning crew from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.,” said John Stangroom, manager at North Main Street store.
Partitions also have been placed at cash registers and along the deli counter to block contact between customers and cashiers. Employees wear gloves and some are using masks.
“We’re doing everything possible we can to keep our employees and customers safe and healthy,” Stangroom said.
Madasyn Lee and Joe Napsha are Tribune-Review staff writers. You can contact Madasyn at 724-226-4702, mczebiniak@triblive.com or via Twitter @MLeeTrib. You can contact Joe at 724-836-5252, jnapsha@triblive.com or via Twitter @jnapsha.
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