MILLSBORO, DE – We want to thank all of our employees, growers, customers, and vendors during the last several months, as we have all come together to fight against the spread of COVID-19. We always knew we had the best team, but everyone has really risen to meet this challenge head on. Our President, Phillip Plylar, said it best in this Thank You Video, which we released early in this crisis.

As an essential business, that President Trump later upgraded to be part of the nation’s critical infrastructure, our team was proactive in trying to protect our workforce from the virus. From the first meeting of our Task Force and every day since, we’ve worked hard to follow all recommended CDC guidelines to protect our workers. A comprehensive video of those efforts can be seen here.

Among the steps we’ve taken:
– Initiated temperature checks at ALL of our locations, including our corporate office.
– Implemented mandatory face masks in all locations when not sitting in personal offices or cubicles.
– Implemented mandatory face masks AND face shields at all processing facilities.
– Implemented additional social distancing on production lines. We’ve installed plexiglass and other barriers wherever possible.
– Doubled and tripled our cleaning rotations and housekeeping staffs through all facilities.
– Increased the number of hand sanitizers throughout all facilities.
– Cleaned and disinfected common areas of processing facilities including: cafeterias, locker rooms, hallways, conference rooms, medical offices, and common office areas.
– Deep fogging of areas on nights and weekends.
– Ordered additional computers, laptops, keyboards etc., so employees don’t have to share equipment wherever possible.
– Implemented a Special Hourly Sick Pay program that encouraged employees who are sick to stay home.
– Relaxed attendance policies so employees didn’t have to fear losing their jobs if they are sick.
– Implemented a pay raise for all hourly employees to thank them for their dedication to coming to work (see our President talk about this pay raise when it was extended from April, May and into June).

We have been in constant communication with the state health department, and they’ve visited our facilities on multiple occasions. So has the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. We shared our best practices so they could share with other manufacturing facilities. We worked hard to communicate to our employees how important staying safe at work and at home was to their health. Here’s a video we released to help our employees stay safe at home.

We’ve also worked hard to make sure chicken is available for purchase in our local communities. We’ve had numerous truck sales that offered chicken as low as $1 pound, and allowed people to stay in their cars to purchase caseloads. And our team has donated more than half a million pounds of chicken to food banks, churches, community groups, school children, health care workers and more. Here are just some of the things we’ve done to say thank you.

We have an amazing team at Mountaire Farms, that works hard together to produce the best quality products that our customers have come to expect from us. They have faced this challenge with strength and determination and we’re proud of them every day.