Pandemic affecting pear growing season
FINLEY >> Pear packing season for the Scully Packing company, located in Finley, was not the norm this year. Like a lot of other local businesses, they had to deal with the pandemic, but they made it through the season without a COVID-19 outbreak.
“We employ a lot of people in the packing house. And we knew that if we couldn’t control the pandemic in our environment, we would be shut down for public safety reasons. It would be a disaster for the 25 growers,” said the matriarch of the business, Toni Scully. Thirty five percent of pear production in California comes from Scully’s family business.
“The pandemic affected our business in several ways. On the marketing side, consumer buying habits shifted away from bulk produce and more toward packaged produce. We were able to shift some of our production to pouch bags, which helped,” said general manager and part owner Pat Scully. “Some of our important markets were negatively impacted by the economy. Mexico, the food service industry and large school districts are all very important markets for small pears. All of these outlets were weakened by the pandemic.”
Pat Scully added that the lack of labor made it difficult to put all of the fruit in its optimal packaging. “We feel fortunate to have been able to have enough labor to get all of our fruit packed. The fact that we had a short crop was a blessing with the labor difficulties we encountered,” he said,
adding that the company owes a debt of gratitude to their loyal employees who helped them maneuver through the pandemic.
According to the Scully family, there were about 450 people working, sometimes in fairly close quarters, where social distancing was not possible, all wearing masks, sanitizing, socially distanced at break times, and trained in other protocols. They worked six days a week, in the summer heat, 10 hours a day at the peak, for three to seven weeks. “We all have to wear masks; hand washing all the time; temperature taken at home; and social distance at lunchtime, keeping people together in their carpool, and even in the workplace as much as we could, or in their family groups. They all cooperated. Nobody wanted to get sick. They all protected each other. And they worked hard, but they all stayed home if they weren’t feeling good,” said Toni Scully.
Janette Jimenez, office assistant at the company for more than 20 years, agreed. She mentioned they all had to go through a big change in 2020: “We made sure everybody was doing
what they needed to do. It was stressful at times. This year, everything was so different.” She misses the interaction with her coworkers, but said that safety was the priority.
“If you follow the guidelines, you can stay well, and you can keep people well. The system worked. I believe this is a story of hope for our community. And it’s a story of hope for our business,” said Toni Scully.
Following Dr. Pace’s guidelines and industry standards
County of Lake Public Health Officer, Dr. Gary Pace kept regular contact with the agricultural community throughout the season. According Pat Scully, “following the guidelines for COVID was a matter of staying in business or not. It was a pretty easy decision. We worked closely with Dr. Pace leading up to pear season and we found him to be very helpful and interested in our success. We had a very successful season that we could not have had without the full support of our employees.”
These efforts included detailed employee training on COVID; temperature monitoring with high-tech infrared thermometers, social distancing where possible, the use of extra hand
washing sinks and hand sanitizer stations, the addition of tents to expand break areas and the purchase and use of approximately 150 extra picnic tables to help distance employees during breaks and lunch break.
“We are firm believers that the single most effective way of preventing the spread of COVID in the workplace is the use of masks. We had a zero-tolerance policy for not using masks or improper use of masks. We thank our employees for quickly getting on board with this policy. We expected this would be a daily battle, but to the credit of our employees, everyone got on board and made it a non-issue,” said the general manager.
The business owners said the biggest challenge was how the employees handled the pandemic outside the workplace. “Through training, I think we helped mitigate this risk. The bottom line is that we can help control their risks in the workplace, but we have no control of what happens as people are away from work. We feel our employees took the risks very seriously and did what they needed to do to mitigate their risks away from work. Without their help, both at work and when they were away from work, we could not have had a successful season,” he said.