‘It’s difficult – your priority is to mind your staff’

WE used not to think about the supermarket as being on the front line, but there’s no doubt about it now: it is.

It’s an essential service and the people who are involved in stocking our shelves and serving at our tills are amongst the heroes of the current crisis. Not all heroes wear capes, as An Taoiseach noted at the start of this crisis, some of them wear name tags and work in SuperValu.

For the people at the centre of it all, it’s bound to be a stressful time and, as the owner / manager of a SuperValu in Killorglin, Kerry boss Peter Keane has been pitched from one front line battle to another.

“There’s no question about it but it’s difficult,” he told The Kerryman this week.

“Because your priority is to mind your staff and you’re obviously trying to ensure that everybody gets food because people need food. They have to have food to live and it’s just trying to make sure all your staff are safe while all that’s going on.

“Obviously you are concerned for them, you’re concerned for that and obviously if you have somebody with an underlying problem you’re looking out for them a bit more and leaving them at home.

“We’re sanitising and all of that and you’re splitting shifts with your staff so your staff aren’t crossing over and meeting and hitting off each other, you know, because if they do it could bring them all down.”

Despite the difficulties of the situation, Keane feels it’s brought the best out in people as they adhere with the social distancing guidelines and instore advice.

“People are [adhering] and people are great. They know the circumstances for everybody and everybody is helping each other at the end of the day. It’s no different even with your home deliveries and stuff like that.

“The amount of goodwill out there at the moment is unbelievable. The amount of people that have come to me offering their services to do home deliveries, whatever they’d be doing – they could be idle at the moment – could they do home deliveries for people that need them.

“You’ve a lot of older people who are isolating and who are self-isolating. They mightn’t be sick, but they’re isolating. People understand that and they want to help them. Everyone has a mom and everyone has a dad or a grandmother or a granddad and they all know people who are under pressure with the whole thing. They mightn’t be able to get out, but they need food.

“Sometimes it’s only somebody knocking on the door and they stand back and people can wave at somebody or say hello to somebody when they’re delivering something.”

One thing Keane wanted to stress when talking to us was the strength of the supply chain.

“The supply chain is fantastic,” he said. “The biggest problem with the supply chain is when you go back to this day three weeks ago. The supply chain got an awful jolt that day and that two or three days. It took the best part of a week for the whole thing to recover from that.

“It probably got a bit of a jolt again last weekend when everybody was relatively prepared for it. Initially people went panic buying and stuff like that. They didn’t necessarily need to, but everybody worries at the same time.”

Keane, of course, has also had to deal with the fall-out from the crisis in his other job as Kerry senior football manager.

“It’s a new world really, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Three weeks ago today we found out. We were to train that night and we did, we trained on the Thursday night because it wasn’t out until midnight. I suppose we could have cancelled training that day, but we used that training session that night more as a way of touching base with the players to prepare because they could prepare for the next few weeks.

“At that stage they called it until last Sunday, the 29th of March or something, they called it for two weeks, but to be honest I don’t think any of us believed it was only going to be two weeks. So we have a chance that night to have some sort of a plan in place for two weeks, but we knew then that we’d be able to communicate another bit of a plan on from that pushing forward.”

As with other inter-county set-ups it’s a case of home programmes and using technology to co-ordinate things.

“That’s pretty much it,” he explained. “All these guys, look they’re all well-capable of looking after themselves and all they wanted was a small bit of guidance and leave them off with it then. They’ve taken responsibility for it and they’ve taken ownership of looking after themselves to have themselves in the best shape. Obviously we’ll touch base with them with WhatsApp and emails with a few programmes and away they go.

“Being active is one side of it, but obviously you’ve got pressures from different fellas. Some fellas have college exams coming up and they’re preparing for them and wondering what form will those exams take this year. “You’ve other fellas in jobs, other fellas looking for jobs, you’ve a right good mix of families and stuff like that. Every fella has a different concern and what worries you might not worry me and vice versa, so it’s about having a mix. We’re in touch with them and making sure they’re all

okay.”