Food Processors: Thank You!

We had leftovers for dinner last night. Turkey sandwiches and salad.  

Normally, that would be an unremarkable statement, but I find it extraordinary that fresh, wholesome food is still available despite the events of the past two years. That is no small feat. And it is past time that we recognized the extraordinary resilience of food producers that have managed to feed us in an environment that is increasingly difficult.

We can debate the issues behind higher food prices-particularly meat prices—as is the chatter today. Certainly, various responses from the industry to current White House criticism and the plan to address this issue are worth exploring.  

But that’s not the point of this post. Here, we note that our nation’s food producers really have done a remarkable job pivoting and persevering to keep food on grocery shelves. And they deserve credit for that.

Our firm’s engineers, architects, designers, and construction specialists see what the average consumer does not. We get the calls from processors desperate to increase capacity to meet their customers’ needs. We are in the plants and on construction sites helping them figure out how to manage while they wait for everything from equipment to ingredients.

Faced with a workforce that was already limited, these businesses—many of them family-owned for generations—have invested in expansive facility changes and advanced technologies to keep staff healthy during this pandemic while continued waves of illness, changing governmental requirements, and other economic factors hinder their efforts. To keep your food safe, the working environment in these facilities is often cold, sometimes wet, and always noisy. Operations do not cease for holidays, and those at the helm of these businesses work 24/7.

And they keep going because people need to eat.

So, thank you to ALL of you behind the scenes for your efforts. We appreciate you.