O.Berk's Response To COVID-19

Updated March 23, 2020

O.Berk Company remains fully operational during the COVID-19 pandemic. We are closely monitoring the situation as it evolves and are being guided by recommendations of the CDC, local municipalities, state and the federal governments.

O.Berk Operating As An “Essential” Business To Supply Customers During COVID-19 Pandemic

As more shelter in place or stay at home orders are issued, O.Berk will continue operating as an Essential Business serving the food, beverage, medical and pharmaceutical industries.

We will remain fully operational and have issued travel authorization letters to all employees that need to work at our physical locations or make deliveries.

As noted in our prior communications listed below, we have expanded our precautionary measures to ensure employee safety and continuity of operations for the duration of this crisis. Our team remains at the ready to adapt to the changing circumstances and continue to serve the needs of our business community so they can serve our communities.

New Protocols

Our main priority during this time is the health and safety of our employees, customers, and suppliers. As such, we are implementing additional protocols in accordance with our preparedness plan that include:

• Restricting all work-related travel and events
• Internal and external meetings are taking place remotely.
• Special and additional cleaning efforts for our office environment.
• Relocation of office personnel to work from home wherever possible.
• Our warehouse locations remain fully staffed and operational. We have implemented additional protocols in furtherance of the safety of our teams during pickup and delivery of goods.
• Our fleet of trucks is being cleaned with disinfectant daily. We remain poised to implement additional precautions and protocols as new information and guidelines become available.

Supply Chain Consistency

Our operations team is working diligently to put backups and redundancies in place to ensure consistency of supply and service. As the situation remains fluid, we will continue to adapt. We are seeing increased lead times as a result of sudden spikes in demand across all industries; our manufacturers are ramping up capacity to meet the needs of our customers. We are also ramping up our sourcing efforts to ensure coverage for the increased demand for packaging, including cleaning supplies, soap, and hand sanitizer. As a key link in the supply chain needed to support our customers, their customers, our communities and our economy, we take our responsibility to serve your needs seriously, and our entire team is stepping up to ensure continuity.

Recommendations To Our Customers

It’s O.Berk’s mission to provide our customers with actionable information when it matters most, and we believe we all do our best work when we share as much information as possible. We understand our customers are settling in for what could be a long road to recovery, which may result in bumps in demand. We ask that you help us support your customer needs by planning ahead and sharing your projections. As lead times and transit times fluctuate, we do our best work to prepare and provide flexible solutions for you when we understand your needs. We will continue to reach out to our customers to discuss how we can work together on individualized supply plans for the near future.