Supermarkets Respond to Committee Concerns on Polish Beef Imports

Response from CO-OP

Hello,

Thank you for your email, we are sorry for the delay in coming back to you and want to assure you that we are working hard to support our customers, colleagues and the community during these difficult times. We would like to take the opportunity to share some of the ways we are dealing with Coronavirus.

The latest information can be found at https://www.coop.co.uk/coronavirus. This page is updated regularly and should be the first place to check if you have any further queries.

We're committed to serving communities at this time of high demand for food products and we’ve recently recruited 5000 new colleagues to support our stores and vulnerable customers. We are also donating £1.5million worth of food to FareShare – the UK’s largest hunger fighting charity who supply a large network of local community groups, food banks and charities across the country. Find more details about how we are helping the community here, https://www.coop.co.uk/coronavirus#coronavirus_updates_on_how_we're_helping_the_community

Over the past few weeks we've invested £3m on new protective equipment for our store colleagues and installed thousands of protective screens along with supplying gloves and hand sanitiser for our frontline colleagues. Find out more: https://coop.co.uk/coronavirus#coronavirus_our_colleagues_section

We’ve also implemented a number of social distancing measures in-store, including reducing the number of tills open, two-metre floor spacing guides, limiting the number of customers in-store and encouraging contactless payments. We ask customers to be considerate when visiting, please be aware of the signs and comply with any guidance from our teams in store.

We are pleased to prioritise NHS workers, vulnerable customers and those that care for them during the hours of 8am to 9am Monday – Saturday /10am to 11am on Sundays in all our stores and encourage them to shop within the social distancing guidelines we have in place. All Co-op stores (which the exception of petrol filling stations which close at 11pm) are operating reduced opening times by closing at 8pm, allowing us to restock our shelves for you and give our colleagues a well-earned break.

For every week of unplanned closure at our 25 Co-op Academy Schools, all students will receive a £20 voucher that can be spent in our Co-op Food stores. If your student attends a Co-op Academy they will be kept up to date on our scheme through communications from the school.

If you are a colleague, or are concerned for a colleague you know, please speak to your manager, who has the most up to date information. You can also read our dedicated webpage for Co-op Colleagues: https://colleagues.coop.co.uk/coronavirus-advice HR contact details can be found on the same Colleague website for further questions.

Thank you for your ongoing support through these difficult times.

Coop Customer Service Centre