Perdue Taking Precautions

As a number of food processing facilities across the nation have closed, the Monterey’s Perdue Farms plant remains safe.

Diana Souder is a spokesperson for Perdue.

“All of our facilities at Perdue are fully cleaned and sanitized every single day from top to bottom. Before we can even start running the plant for the day, someone from the USDA has to inspect and sign off on the cleanliness of the plant. So we start every day with a fully cleaned facility – that’s what we do under normal circumstances.”

Souder said workers are being monitored for symptoms.

“Every single person who enters one of our facilities has to have his or her temperature taken,” Souder said. “If they have a high temperature, all of our facilities have onsite wellness centers. That’s something unique to Perdue.”

One thing that makes food safe, Souder said, is that the virus does not survive in food.

“COVID-19 is not known by the CDC to be a food-borne pathogen,” Souder said. “In fact, because of poor survivability of these coronaviruses on surfaces, there is a very low risk of spread from food products or packaging that are shipped over a period of days or weeks at ambient, refrigerated, or frozen temperatures.”

Souder said all of Perdue’s products continue to be inspected by the USDA before they can leave the plant.