Millions of people are still without power 5 days after the hurricane. At this point, perishable refrigerated and frozen foods are certainly lost. This not only impacts products at home, but also those in restaurants and retail.
Flooding, especially in coastal areas impacted by storm surges, has impacted homes and businesses. Any food contacting flood waters should be thrown out.
There has been a huge impact on the agricultural sector from both flooding and from wind. It is estimated that 50% of the fruit came off the region's citrus trees. Vegetable crops have also been lost in areas prone to flooding.
Orlando Sentinel
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/consumer/os-hurricane-irma-grocery-supply-chain-20170919-story.html
Hurricane Irma challenges Florida grocery pipeline
September 19, 2017
Kyle Arnold
There has been a huge impact on the agricultural sector from both flooding and from wind. It is estimated that 50% of the fruit came off the region's citrus trees. Vegetable crops have also been lost in areas prone to flooding.
Orlando Sentinel
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/consumer/os-hurricane-irma-grocery-supply-chain-20170919-story.html
Hurricane Irma challenges Florida grocery pipeline
September 19, 2017
Kyle Arnold
Jackie Plaskowitz went to her local Winn-Dixie supermarket three days after Hurricane Irma, hoping to find fresh vegetables and meat for dinner.
Produce, dairy and frozen food aisles were blocked off. Employees tossed spoiled food into carts to be thrown out. She settled for a can of Chef Boyardee mini raviolis.
“There isn’t anything here,” said Plaskowitz, who returned to work cleaning homes on Thursday. “I thought I would be able to find something for dinner, but there aren’t even any fresh fruits and vegetables.”
Hurricane Irma has pushed Florida’s grocery supply line to the brink, leaving shelves empty of staples days after the storm passed. Even a full week after the storm, some stores had empty spaces and shortages of basic items.
Produce, dairy and frozen food aisles were blocked off. Employees tossed spoiled food into carts to be thrown out. She settled for a can of Chef Boyardee mini raviolis.
“There isn’t anything here,” said Plaskowitz, who returned to work cleaning homes on Thursday. “I thought I would be able to find something for dinner, but there aren’t even any fresh fruits and vegetables.”
Hurricane Irma has pushed Florida’s grocery supply line to the brink, leaving shelves empty of staples days after the storm passed. Even a full week after the storm, some stores had empty spaces and shortages of basic items.
Despite lessons learned from multiple hurricanes in 2004 and 2005, store operators said they have never dealt with a storm that impacted nearly the entire state, leaving 60 percent of Florida without power and some communities with wind and flooding damage. Watching Irma’s long, powerful march toward Florida for more than a week also taxed supplies, giving shoppers a reason to stock up on a big scale.
Some stores couldn’t operate because of outages; some couldn’t get food because distribution lines were slowed down. When they did open, much of their perishable food had spoiled. There was a surge in demand from customers who hadn’t shopped in days and saw food spoil.
Stores and retail analysts say Hurricane Irma’s size and path made it the perfect storm to cripple
Florida’s grocery supply lines.
“In terms of damaging the state’s infrastructure of power and clogging roads, Irma’s about as bad as we’ve ever seen,” said Mark Johnston, a professor who studies retail at Rollins College, Crummer Graduate School of Business. “Store’s can’t run without power and trucks were held up for three days or more.”
Irma showed the strength and weaknesses of the modern food distribution system, where stores rely on daily deliveries of fresh food, Johnston said.
Irma showed the strength and weaknesses of the modern food distribution system, where stores rely on daily deliveries of fresh food, Johnston said.
Most regions have a three-day supply of food in supermarkets and distribution centers, said Kim Zueli, who recently wrote about natural disasters’ impact on cities in a report for Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, a Boston-based think tank. The organization is trying to educate cities about ways to keep people fed during natural disasters — including keeping larger supplies of food on hand, bolstering food banks and providing better access for grocery-store trucks.
“Cities need better planning; they need to plan for what happens when you can’t access food at all,” Zueli said. “I think food systems need to be seen as a critical system.”
Big grocery chains have backup plans if one or even a few stores can’t open. “But there is no plan for what to do when an entire region is out of commission, Zueli said. “That’s what happened in Florida, an entire state that couldn’t do much of anything.”.
The state’s nine largest population centers, from Fort Myers to Jacksonville, faced major damage from the storm.
The long, uncertain approach of the storm is what James Miller, Florida Retail Federation spokesman, identified as a unique issue about Irma. The storm is tied with a 1932 hurricane for the longest time spent as a Category 5 hurricane.
“Both the size of the storm and the unpredictability of the storm on the front end led to the shortages of food, fuel and water,” Miller said. “And after the storm, from a retailing perspective, you had to restock the whole state as opposed to a few cities.”
“Cities need better planning; they need to plan for what happens when you can’t access food at all,” Zueli said. “I think food systems need to be seen as a critical system.”
Big grocery chains have backup plans if one or even a few stores can’t open. “But there is no plan for what to do when an entire region is out of commission, Zueli said. “That’s what happened in Florida, an entire state that couldn’t do much of anything.”.
The state’s nine largest population centers, from Fort Myers to Jacksonville, faced major damage from the storm.
The long, uncertain approach of the storm is what James Miller, Florida Retail Federation spokesman, identified as a unique issue about Irma. The storm is tied with a 1932 hurricane for the longest time spent as a Category 5 hurricane.
“Both the size of the storm and the unpredictability of the storm on the front end led to the shortages of food, fuel and water,” Miller said. “And after the storm, from a retailing perspective, you had to restock the whole state as opposed to a few cities.”
Immediately after Irma passed, Florida Retail Federation communicated with law enforcement in hard-hit areas, such as the Keys, to allow trucks back in to restock stores, Miller said.
While grocery supply lines started running about 24 hours after the storm passed in Central Florida, retailers are still dealing with the repercussions as they try to restock.
T.G. Lee stopped distributing milk from its Orlando center during the storm. When it returned, it initially limited production to the most popular varieties, 2 percent and whole, said Jamaison Schuler, a spokesman for parent company Dean Foods.
At one point after the storm, Publix published a social media post from CEO Todd Jones, pleading with customers to have patience while they restocked stores following Hurricane Irma.
On Sunday evening in the Publix at the Shoppes of Eastwood in east Orange, milk and bread were scarce, and there were no cases of bottled water; only six-packs of water were available.
Winn-Dixie spokesman Joe Caldwell said it took days to evaluate every store in the chain for damage and to figure out when it could reopen. Some stores had standing water inside.
The world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart, only opened a few stores the day following the storm. Some stayed closed until Wednesday or Thursday as the company waited for electricity and cleared spoiled goods out of stores, spokesman Ragan Dickens said.
While grocery supply lines started running about 24 hours after the storm passed in Central Florida, retailers are still dealing with the repercussions as they try to restock.
T.G. Lee stopped distributing milk from its Orlando center during the storm. When it returned, it initially limited production to the most popular varieties, 2 percent and whole, said Jamaison Schuler, a spokesman for parent company Dean Foods.
At one point after the storm, Publix published a social media post from CEO Todd Jones, pleading with customers to have patience while they restocked stores following Hurricane Irma.
On Sunday evening in the Publix at the Shoppes of Eastwood in east Orange, milk and bread were scarce, and there were no cases of bottled water; only six-packs of water were available.
Winn-Dixie spokesman Joe Caldwell said it took days to evaluate every store in the chain for damage and to figure out when it could reopen. Some stores had standing water inside.
The world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart, only opened a few stores the day following the storm. Some stayed closed until Wednesday or Thursday as the company waited for electricity and cleared spoiled goods out of stores, spokesman Ragan Dickens said.
“In some stores, we are at a total loss from a perishables standpoint,” Dickens said. “There were distribution centers that were closed for a period of time.”
CBS News
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-irma-power-outages-florida-food-safety/
Food safety a growing concern as Irma power outages persist
By Ashley Welch CBS News September 14, 2017, 5:14 PM
As millions of Florida residents remain without power in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, experts are warning them to take precautions against food poisoning.
Health officials in Broward County issued an advisory Thursday about the risk of food-borne illness.
"Due to the number of households still without electrical power, the Florida Department of Health in Broward County (DOH-Broward) reminds everyone that it is important to take careful precautions to ensure food safety," the statement reads.
When the power goes out for an extended period of time and refrigerators and ovens are inoperable, the risk of food poisoning is heightened. People should throw away any perishable food that has been at room temperature for two hours or more or any food that has an unusual odor, color, or texture
Additionally, people should discard any food that has come in contact with floodwater, even those that are wrapped or packaged in plastic.
CBS News
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-irma-power-outages-florida-food-safety/
Food safety a growing concern as Irma power outages persist
By Ashley Welch CBS News September 14, 2017, 5:14 PM
As millions of Florida residents remain without power in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, experts are warning them to take precautions against food poisoning.
Health officials in Broward County issued an advisory Thursday about the risk of food-borne illness.
"Due to the number of households still without electrical power, the Florida Department of Health in Broward County (DOH-Broward) reminds everyone that it is important to take careful precautions to ensure food safety," the statement reads.
When the power goes out for an extended period of time and refrigerators and ovens are inoperable, the risk of food poisoning is heightened. People should throw away any perishable food that has been at room temperature for two hours or more or any food that has an unusual odor, color, or texture
Additionally, people should discard any food that has come in contact with floodwater, even those that are wrapped or packaged in plastic.
"There could be microbreaks in the plastic," Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, told CBS News. "There's no way to know if it's been compromised."
Experts say to follow the mantra "when in doubt, throw it out."
DOH-Broward offers the following guidelines to encourage safe food handling and reduce the risk of food-borne illness:
https://www.usatoday.com/money/
Hurricane Irma's wrath will mean grower losses, higher grocery bills
IMMOKALEE, Fla. -- Hurricane Irma tore through Florida's rich agricultural heartland, and now it's going to shred consumers' wallets at the supermarket.
Fruits and vegetables grown in southwest Florida — a prime region for citrus — and other parts of Florida could be in short supply after being hit by Irma. That will translate to higher prices in the grocery aisles for everything from tomatoes to orange juice.
The storm flooded fields and groves, blew oranges to the ground, twisted protective plastic, broke drip irrigation pipes and tubes, and destroyed vegetable plants. Growers struggled to get water off their fields and groves.
The hurricane knocked 50% of the fruit off the region's citrus trees, estimates Ron Hamel, executive vice president of the Gulf Citrus Growers Association. Statewide, he expects the losses to be in the same range, with at least half of this season's crop wiped out.
"The whole state was in the hurricane-force winds," he said. "But certain areas got heavier intensity."
DOH-Broward offers the following guidelines to encourage safe food handling and reduce the risk of food-borne illness:
- Always keep a thermometer in your refrigerator. The temperature should read 41 degrees Fahrenheit (F) or below.
- Thawed food can usually be eaten if it is still "refrigerator cold."
- Hands should be washed before preparing or eating food, after using the bathroom or changing a diaper, after handling uncooked food, after playing with a pet, after handling garbage, after tending to someone who is sick or injured, after blowing your nose, coughing or sneezing, after participating in flood cleanup activities, and after handling articles contaminated with floodwater or sewage.
- Avoid cross-contamination, which is the transfer of harmful bacteria from one food to another. Never place any type of food on a plate, cutting board or utensil that previously held raw meat, poultry or seafood.
- When grilling foods, preheat the coals on your grill for 20-30 minutes or until the coals are lightly coated with ash. Grills should never be placed in doors.
- Use a meat thermometer to ensure that food reaches a safe internal temperature.
- Hamburgers and ground poultry should be cooked to 160 F.
- Poultry parts: 170 F.
- Roasts, steaks and other large cuts of beef: 145 F (rare) and 160 F (medium).
- Fish should be cooked until the meat is opaque and flakes easily.
- Use sanitized food and water bowls for your pets and be sure that they do not drink from flood-contaminated surfaces.
- Never taste food to determine its safety.
https://www.usatoday.com/money/
Hurricane Irma's wrath will mean grower losses, higher grocery bills
IMMOKALEE, Fla. -- Hurricane Irma tore through Florida's rich agricultural heartland, and now it's going to shred consumers' wallets at the supermarket.
Fruits and vegetables grown in southwest Florida — a prime region for citrus — and other parts of Florida could be in short supply after being hit by Irma. That will translate to higher prices in the grocery aisles for everything from tomatoes to orange juice.
The storm flooded fields and groves, blew oranges to the ground, twisted protective plastic, broke drip irrigation pipes and tubes, and destroyed vegetable plants. Growers struggled to get water off their fields and groves.
The hurricane knocked 50% of the fruit off the region's citrus trees, estimates Ron Hamel, executive vice president of the Gulf Citrus Growers Association. Statewide, he expects the losses to be in the same range, with at least half of this season's crop wiped out.
"The whole state was in the hurricane-force winds," he said. "But certain areas got heavier intensity."
Many groves are still flooded, leaving already stressed trees standing in water and susceptible to more damage.
Tears came to Gene McAvoy's eyes Tuesday as he surveyed the region's farms and ranches. McAvoy, a multicounty vegetable agent with the University of Florida/Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, knows the damage could have been much worse if Irma stayed a Category 4 or 5 storm with even higher winds.
At a West Coast tomato farm just north of Immokalee, Fla., McAvoy found 524 acres of plastic laid for tomato plantings was a lost, totaling more than $1 million. Some 25 acres of plants.
The losses will set the farm back three weeks to a month on its planting schedule. "It's going to be an extensive amount of work just to get it redone," McAvoy said.
For area vegetable growers, harvesting usually begins by mid-October, and a primary mission is to have plenty of vegetables in the market for Thanksgiving, one of their most lucrative times of the year when there isn't as much competition from other U.S. regions or other countries, namely Mexico.
"We'll be lucky to hit the Christmas market this year," McAvoy said.
Frey Farms lost 95 acres of watermelons in LaBelle, McAvoy said. Other growers lost early plantings of squash, cucumbers, peppers and eggplant.
Alfie Oakes, owner of Oakes Farms, estimates his vegetable crop losses at $1.4 million to $1.6 million. Everything he had planted in Immokalee is gone, he said, including tomatoes and green peppers.
At one farm, Oakes said his drip irrigation tape was torn out of the ground, dragged across the field and twisted, which he attributes to tornado activity. All of his 17 greenhouses collapsed.
"You always hope for the best. But it was pretty sad out there," he said.
Fortunately, he moved the 5 million transplants that were in the greenhouses to safety ahead of the storm.
This is definitely an event with very significant damage to the Florida citrus industry," said Shannon Shepp, executive director of the Florida Department of Citrus. "Before Hurricane Irma there was a good chance we would have more than 75 million boxes of oranges on the trees this season. We now have much less."."
Fruit prices were climbing even before the storm hit.
"The prices to growers are certainly going to go up if they have fruit," Hamel said. "But the question is how that's all going to play out. Nobody knows."
Before the storm, growers felt good about the upcoming season. Because of a wet winter last year, they saw a lot of fruit drop from a fungal disease.
.
"It's a sad state of affairs for the industry after being optimistic going into the season and now having to start the season with a big fruit loss," Hamel said.
The damage won't just hurt growers. There will be a ripple effect felt throughout the industry affecting processing facilities, packing houses and other related operations. Farm workers, who are already dealing with personal losses from Irma, may find themselves with less work.
On the flip side, Hamel said growers could struggle to find enough help if farm workers find jobs in construction and landscaping to assist with the massive cleanup after Irma.
Despite his losses, Wayne Simmons, owner of the LaBelle Fruit, said he still feels fortunate.
"We surely got a lot of damage to the groves," he said. "The house is good, and we'll survive."
Most of his trees are still standing, and he's thankful for that. A Category 4 or 5 storm, he said, "would have just made tumbleweeds out of citrus trees."
Nation's Restaurant News
http://www.nrn.com/operations/restaurants-face-long-recovery-irma
Restaurants face long recovery from Irma
While storm wasn’t as bad as feared, its impact will still be felt far and wide
Jonathan Maze | Sep 11, 2017
Investors sent stocks higher on Wall Street Monday, cheering a belief that Hurricane Irma didn’t have quite the devastating impact on Florida that many people feared when they went home for the weekend on Friday.
That includes restaurant stocks, which rose more than 1 percent Monday afternoon, according to the NRN Restaurant Index.
Yet the widespread storm still had a major impact on the restaurant industry, closing thousands of locations amid power outages and flooding along the Florida and north as far as Charleston, S.C.
Recovery from such a storm could take time, given the storm’s immense size.
“If you have a fire claim, you could probably get a local contractor to come out and help the next day,” said Bill Strout, president of Intrepid Direct Insurance, which specializes in providing insurance coverage to restaurant franchises. “But when you get a catastrophic event to an entire state, it stresses out all vendors. Contractors will probably come from all parts. It’s going to delay getting folks getting back up and running.”
One big problem was power. Florida Power and Light, the state’s largest utility, said on Monday that 3.5 million of its customers were without power. Overall, more than 7 million homes and businesses were without power throughout the Southeast as of Monday, according to the Associated Press.
Rob Gould, vice president of communications for FPL, told ABC on Sunday that residents and businesses on Florida’s West Coast could be without power for weeks because the utility needs “a wholesale rebuild of our electric grid.”
“That will take weeks,” he said, adding that it could end up, “The longest restoration and most complex in U.S. history.”
The longer power is out, the longer many restaurants will remain closed, which could endanger inventories, potentially prolonging their closures.
Florida is a major restaurant market, with 39,000 restaurants that employ more than 1 million people and generate nearly $42 billion in annual sales, according to the National Restaurant Association.
It’s the headquarters for Olive Garden owner Darden Restaurants Inc., as well as Restaurant Brands International Inc.’s Burger King.
Bloomin’ Brands Inc., owner of Outback Steakhouse, Carrabba’s, Bonefish Grill and Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse, is based in Tampa, about 181 miles north of Marco Island, where the storm made its second landfall on Sunday.
Other chains have a heavy presence there: Subway has more than 1,500 locations in the state: McDonald’s has 900: Dunkin’ Donuts has well over 800; and Burger King has more than 700.
But some smaller chains have a higher percentage of their locations in the Sunshine State. About a third of the locations operated by Dallas-based Fiesta Restaurant Group Inc. are in Florida, including more than two-thirds of the 185-unit Pollo Tropical brand. Most of the rest are in other Southeast states getting hit with flooding from Irma’s remnants, now downgraded to a tropical storm.
Restaurants in Miami and Orlando reportedly have started reopening, but many others will remain closed as long as they are without power.
Waffle House, the Norcross, Ga.-based family dining chain known for its hurricane response given its concentration in the Southeast, said in a tweet that it has “teams on the ground” assessing damage at its Florida locations. “Many are without power,” the company said. Hundreds of the 1,900-unit chain’s locations are in the Southeast.
Federal emergency management officials use the number of Waffle Houses closed, open or operating with a limited menu as something of an informal test to determine the severity of a natural disaster.
Zoe’s Kitchen Inc. said it has 23 locations in Florida that are closed due to the hurricane.
“At this our focus is on the safety and well-being of our team members and guests that have been hit by Hurricane Irma,” CEO Kevin Miles said in an email. “Once the affected areas are back and stable, we will then begin to focus on the business interruption.” He said all Zoe’s locations would be accepting hurricane relief donations for the Red Cross through the end of September.
Subway said on Monday that most of its 1,500 Florida locations remain closed on Monday. “As soon as it is safe, our field teams and franchisees will begin assessing the situation,” the company said in a statement.
Panda Express, meanwhile, said it would continue to pay more than 1,000 employees who cannot work because of restaurants closed during the hurricane.
The company also said it is expanding its efforts originally put in place in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. Panda is planning to raise $4 million for hurricane relief efforts, including a $1 million donation, split evenly between the American Red Cross and The Tzu-Chi Foundation, through its Panda Cares Foundation. The company also plans to raise $3 million through in-store donations.
Strout said it would take some time before insurers understand the full extent of Irma’s toll. “You’re talking 10s of billions and maybe up to $100 billion,” he said.
Boston-based risk modeling firm AIR Worldwide on Monday lowered its estimates of Irma damage to as much as $40 billion — down from its previous estimate of as much as $65 billion. The storm’s path on the western side of the state likely reduced its overall potential impact.
Strout said that business owners in these areas need to stay in touch with both employees and vendors during an event. If they’re able to open, they may need to make alternative delivery plans and do some marketing to let people know they’re in business.
Most contracts have “force majeure” clauses that essentially waive contractual obligations in the case of catastrophes and natural disasters such as hurricanes. So a supplier whose warehouse was damaged would not have an obligation to bring food to a restaurant, and so the operator might have to find a different distributor, for instance.
He recommended that business owners take pictures of damage and keep receipts of anything spent on repairs. If the damage is major, the insurance carrier would likely prioritize the claim.
“It’s stressful for the whole community, and restaurants want to get back up and running quickly,” Strout said. “The community is looking forward to getting back up and running. And it might be an opportunity for some goodwill within the community to get back up and running.”
One challenge could be flood insurance. Typical property insurance covers against a loss of income due to storm-related closures. And good insurance would cover against losses due to sewer and storm drain backups. But they wouldn’t cover against flooding from storm surges — which has been a big issue along coastal communities like Miami, Jacksonville and Charleston.
And many restaurants, like many homeowners in flood plains, don’t always buy flood insurance through the national flood program.
“It’s definitely going to be an issue for a lot of restaurants,” Strout said. “Some will not buy it because they don’t think they’re in a flood plain.”
Correction: Sept. 12, 2017 An earlier version of this story misstated the number of people Florida restaurants employ. It is more than 1 million people.
Contact Jonathan Maze at jonathan.maze@penton.com
Follow him on Twitter at @jonathanmaze
NPR
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/09/13/550674848/power-outages-persist-for-millions-in-florida-georgia-and-carolinas-after-irma
Power Outages Persist For Millions In Florida, Georgia And Carolinas After Irma
September 13, 2017·11:46 AM ET
More than 4 million customers in Florida and other states hit by Hurricane Irma remain without electricity, complicating efforts to recover from the huge and intense storm. Some areas also lack water service or are under a mandatory boil water order.
The most outages are in Florida, where nearly 3.8 million accounts don't have power — around 36 percent of the state's total, according to state agency FloridaDisaster.org.
As of Wednesday morning, Florida Power and Light said 1.9 million of its customers were still without electricity, having restored service to 2.5 million out of 4.4 customers impacted by Irma.
"FP&L spokesperson Rob Gould said restoration to nearly all customers in the eastern half of the state should be completed by Sunday night," member station WLRN reports. "The company expects power to be restored to western Florida — more heavily damaged by the storm — by Sept. 22."
At noon Wednesday, Duke Energy said 752,401 of its nearly 1.8 million Florida customers still lack power, with electrical service restored to 641,537 who experienced outages.
Other areas of Florida — such as Seminole, west of Tampa — aren't likely to get power turned back on until "midnight September 17," Duke Energy said.
To turn power back on in Florida, the utility says, work crews must replace "nearly 3,000 poles and 950 miles of wire" in the state.
In Georgia, more than 500,000 electricity accounts are still out of service, Georgia Public Broadcasting reports.
On Monday, Georgia Power reported more than 900,000 outages; Wednesday, the utility says, "We've restored power to more than 590,000 customers statewide in the last 24 hrs."
Those with power restored include more than 300,000 customers in metro Atlanta.
Georgia's Electric Member Corp. says it currently has nearly 192,000 outages.
In North Carolina and South Carolina, where Duke Energy provides electricity for more than 4 million customers, the utility said it has turned the power back on for 160,000 customers and that 48,644 remain affected. The outages range from the coast to far inland cities such as Charlotte and Asheville in North Carolina and Greenville in South Carolina.
In the mountains and upstate areas of the two states, Duke Energy said, people shouldn't expect to have power restored until 11 p.m. on Friday.
South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. says that outages "reached a peak of approximately 154,000 on Monday," when Irma's heavy rains and strong winds buffeted the state, and that about 7,500 outages remain, out of 720,000 customers.
While sewage and water service are still reportedly working in many areas hit by Irma, a number of Florida communities were under mandatory orders to boil their water Wednesday, including the cities of Hollywood and Pembroke Pines — and all of the Florida Keys.
As WLRN notes, "If you're in an area with a boil water notice, that order applies to water for consumption only. You can shower in it, wash clothes with it."
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