A Message from Prima Coffee on COVID-19
To our friends and customers in coffee: our hearts are with you all as we prepare for tough times ahead. Please read this message from our General Manager for how we are addressing COVID-19.
To our customers and the coffee community,
With the rapidly changing situation caused by COVID-19 we want to express our thoughts and provide clarity about what Prima Coffee is doing to care for our employees, business partners, and community. We love the coffee community and the care that it shows for one another's well-being. Care for each other is one of the best things about this industry and we are encouraged to see the community coming together during this time.
The hardest part of the pandemic is not the disruption in our coffee routine or missing the friends at our local shops or adjusting to remote work. What hurts is knowing the hardship this is for those whose livelihoods depend on busy shops. And even more it is the thoughts of those who might have or know someone who has COVID-19. We offer our most sincere sympathy and love to those who have been personally impacted by this virus. We long for a day when all of this uncertainty and sadness will be behind us. For now, we will continue to do our part to care for and encourage our fellow members of the coffee community and every community of which we are a part.
Operationally we are actively monitoring the ongoing developments and are seeking to do our part in flattening the curve. While we are still open we have made a number of changes that may affect the processing of orders and communication with our customers and business partners.
For starters, we have moved our business ops, marketing, and sales departments to be remote. Due to this move phone support will be limited. We will, however, be providing support via chat and email during our regular business hours. If you would like to leave us a voicemail instead, you can do so by calling the number on our website. Please include your name, phone number, email address, and a brief description of your question in your voicemail and we will respond as soon as we are able. Please note that we may respond with either a phone call or an email.
In an effort to support those who are new to brewing at home we will be monitoring Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and we encourage you to reach out to us there with any brewing questions you may have. We will do our best to answer brewing questions on those platforms as you dust off your home brewing setup. We've also created a community resource page that contains links to some refresher brewing tips, recipes, and beginner brewing guides if you are new to brewing at home, need a refresher, or just want to try something new. We hope that these are helpful resources for you as routines get shaken up during this time.
Our warehouse team will still ship items but we are taking measures for their protection. It is still our goal to ship orders from our warehouse the same or next business day but please note that there may be some delays in shipment as we reduce the number of onsite employees. While the transmission of COVID-19 via shipped products is highly unlikely according to the CDC and the World Health Organization says that it is safe to handle shipped packages our staff have been instructed to wash their hands and clean surfaces regularly, as an extra measure of precaution.
We are glad that we can be part of a community that cares for each other. One way to extend care during this time is to consider supporting the local coffee shops and roasters in your community via low-interaction options like to-go orders or coffee subscriptions, as you are able. On our community resource page we've linked to some coffee roasters (we don't get a referral fee for this, just a resource we want to provide) and please make recommendations in the comments section below or via social media. We will be adding to the list of roasters as the community makes suggestions. Please look for ways to show care and kindness to those hardest hit and join us in grieving this tragedy as we long for the day when this is all over.
Take care of each other, stay calm, and brew better,
Matt Averbeck
General Manager
Prima Coffee Equipment
