US supermarket chain studied China response

A short line began to form outside an H-E-B supermarket in West Houston. Only a limited number of people were let into the store at a time to ensure social distancing, in response to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

The practice was one of several undertaken by the San Antoniobased chain to protect public safety in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Leaders at H-E-B, a private company established in 1905 with now more than 300 stores in Texas and northern Mexico, said that they began communicating with Chinese retailers in January to prepare for the eventuality of the pandemic, according to Texas Monthly magazine.

Mellissa Walker, a West Houston resident, is a regular shopper at H-E-B. “I shop H-E-B for most of my grocery needs and usually come here a couple of times a week, Walker, a stay-athome mother, said while waiting in line Thursday.

She listed changes she noticed in the last two weeks: “Markers appeared on the floor to mark the social distance at checkout lines. I have seen H-EB employees spraying disinfectant on freezer doors and handles. Fastmoving items such as water, canned beans and soft drinks are stacked in the front. Clear glass dividers popped up at checkout to separate the cashiers from the customers.

“I have reduced my trips to H-E-B to once a week since the city of Houston started to shut down restaurants two weeks ago. I am able to get pretty much everything I need so far. Sometimes I can’t find a particular brand I prefer, but similar items are available. Well, maybe not toilet paper. It was out at one point,” Walker said.

Justin Noakes, director of emergency preparedness at H-E-B, told Texas Monthly that the company first developed a disaster-response plan in 2005. In 2009, when the H1N1 flu pandemic broke out, the company refined the plan. Noakes leads a group that prepares for emergencies year-round.

When Wuhan announced that the novel coronavirus was spreading via human-to-human transmission in mid-January, Noakes and his team started to watch what was unfolding in China.

On Feb 2, H-E-B compared its emergency plan with what was happening in China and began to prepare in earnest.

“We modeled what had been taking place in China from a transmission perspective, as well as impact. As the number of illnesses and the number of deaths were increasing, obviously the Chinese government was taking some steps to protect their citizens, so we basically mirrored what that might look like,” Noakes said.

H-E-B President Craig Boyan said that Chinese retailers sent some thorough information about what happened in the early days of the outbreak.

“How did that affect grocery and retail, how did that affect employees and how people were addressing sanitization and social distancing, how quarantine has affected the supply chain, how shopping behavior changed as the virus progressed, how did companies work to serve communities with total lockdowns, and what action steps those businesses wish they had done early in the cycle to get ahead of it,” said Boyan.

When the coronavirus next spread to Italy and Spain, H-E-B also contacted retailers there to understand the crisis and the need for products.

The first Texas coronavirus case was confirmed in mid-February. Within a month, certain items, especially sanitary products, started to become scarce in the stores. In response, H-EB activated its Emergency Operation Center on March 4, reduced its store hours to 8 am-8 pm on March 14, and began to limit some items such as pasta, water and toilet paper that each customer could buy in a single trip.

H-E-B, working with Favor Delivery, also launched a low-cost solution helping seniors to get groceries delivered to them to avoid exposure to the coronavirus.

Jon Taylor, professor and chair at the Department of Political Science and Geography at the University of Texas at San Antonio, said he was impressed by what H-E-B had done.

“It is both laudable and heartening that they were in contact with their Chinese counterparts and respected their opinions and best practices. That was not only counter to the behavior of (US President Donald) Trump and his administration, it was counter to an all-too-typical attitude on the part of American businesses toward China,” Taylor said.

“Name-calling and racist comments by Trump and (US Secretary of State Mike) Pompeo have not only damaged China-US relations, their failure to take under conscious consideration the serious quarantine measures that were employed by China during the crisis have now served to endanger the American public,” Taylor pointed out.