Coronavirus is changing the way the nation’s more than 1 million retail establishments must sanitize and deep clean their stores, supply rooms and employee break areas going forward.
The Home Depot and Walmart recently announced their stores would be closing earlier for extra sanitation and re-stocking. Walmart also announced that it was hiring a third-party company to clean and sanitize high-touch surfaces at the Chicago-area store that employed two workers who died from coronavirus.
When big names take such decisive actions, every other retailer takes note. So, this is really the story of the new and urgent sanitation changes necessary for all retailers around the globe — particularly big-box retailers — in the midst of this serious pandemic.
NRF is closely monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic. For updated information and guidance for retailers, check out our resource page.
‘Turning on a dime’
Perhaps the story is best told through the eyes of one tiny equipment manufacturer in Stamford, Conn. Goodway Technologies has spent the last half-century laser-focusing 95 percent of its business on making specialized equipment to clean gigantic boilers and chillers — with the remaining 5 percent focused on making sanitation equipment to be used by retailers and others. It seems the pandemic might be in the process of forever flipping those numbers.
“I’ve dealt previously with things that I thought were catastrophic circumstances, but in my lifetime I’ve never dealt with anything like this,” says President and CEO Tim Kane. His experience as an equipment manufacturer who is instantly turning his company’s mission upside-down might paint a worthy roadmap for retailers looking for a way to move forward during the coronavirus pandemic.
Until the COVID-19 pandemic, Goodway was mostly a maker of very specialized equipment like super-heated steam sanitizers and high-powered vacuums that filter, trap and clean out ultra-tiny particles from boilers and chillers at industrial companies.
But a tiny fraction of its business was also making specialized microbial spray fogging equipment that sanitizes a surface within 10 seconds of the spray landing on it — and dries and protects the surface within 60 seconds.
Until now, there wasn’t a whole lot of interest in that rather esoteric sanitizing equipment. That, of course, was before COVID-19.
Now, the company is turning on a dime to make its BioSpray System the bulk of its business. That’s because its key customers — from food manufacturers to schools and hospitals to utilities to retailers — are all pleading for the specialized sanitation equipment.
“This is not only changing our business now, but for years to come,” Kane says. “We’ve already shifted R&D to focus by more than 50 percent to concentrate on products that will be useful in sanitation in the years ahead.”
Goodway Technologies is getting orders that are 40 to 50 times normal for equipment that it previously hasn’t made all that much, Kane says. “Can you imagine trying to keep up with production at 40 to 50 times forecast?”
One big advantage is that Goodway’s equipment is all manufactured domestically. “We don’t have to make a call to Mexico or China to ramp up production,” he says.
At the same time, he says, orders for equipment for the other part of the business continue to slide as much as 50 percent this year because of the virus. So, it’s mostly a shift in focus in what equipment is made.
For more than half a century, the company has never had to make such a shift. The question remains: Can it successfully do that? The production line is now operating about 20 percent above normal — but it’s now mostly focused on making the sanitizing equipment.
Focusing on need
Many other big and small companies are experiencing the same kind of business conundrum. Kane says he recently spoke with the owner of a kitchen service company that for years has specialized in removing grease from the kitchens of fast-food restaurants. Now, that same company is trying to shift its focus to cleaning and sanitizing kitchens.
Kane says he’s trying to respond to those who truly have the most urgent need. In that sense, he is focusing on areas of the country with the most cases; he’s also trying to be particularly responsive to power-generating facilities which are critical to all consumers. He declines to name his retail customers but says they include many of the nation’s largest big-box retailers.
This isn’t the first time Goodway has been enlisted to assist at a time of national crisis. Nearly 20 years ago, when anthrax attacks were launched throughout the United States Postal System shortly after 9/11, the federal government enlisted Goodway to urgently mass-produce specialized vacuums to safely clean U.S. Postal facilities nationwide.
Now, the villain is COVID-19.
The footprints from this virus are not going away any time soon, Kane says: “Customers will demand and ask more questions than they ever did before.”
This will be the new normal, he says. For a long time to come, the top question every customer walking into a retail facility will wonder is: How clean is it?
NRF is closely monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic, coordinating with government agencies, health experts and retailers as the situation continues to evolve. For updated information and guidance for retailers, check out our resource page.