Table 3.

Possible measures to maintain physical distancing in the food industry.

Location	Physical Distancing Measures	References
Common Spaces, Hallways and Personnel Movement	• Using auto open doors or bumping doors open with hip or using foot on kick plate. • Removing door closure and keeping doors open (where it does not impact food safety zoning). • Propping interior doors to each office open to improve air turnover and decrease touching of door handles. • Minimizing hallway conversations and interactions. • Staggering workers' arrival and departure times to avoid congregations in parking areas, locker rooms, and near time clocks.	IDFA (2020b)
Locker Rooms and Entering/Exiting Production Floor	• Cleaning hands before entering the uniform area. • Minimizing touching non-selected uniforms and hangers. • Placing the empty hanger on a different rack to avoid the hanger touching clean uniforms and to avoid other employees touching it. • Separating soiled uniforms and clean ones.	CDC (2020p) IDFA (2020b)
Production Environment	• Encouraging single-file movement with a 1–2 m distance between each worker through the facility. • Designating workers to monitor and facilitate distancing on processing floor lines. • Staggering workstations on either side of processing lines so that food workers are not facing one another. • Spacing out workstations, which may require reduction in the speed of production lines. • Providing visual cues (e.g., floor markings, signs) as a reminder to workers to maintain physical distancing. • Staggering employee shifts. • Limiting the number of staff in a food preparation area at any one time. • Stretching the shift duration with a smaller number of staff to avoid crowd (at the same time evaluate overtime demands – people who are worn down are more likely to get sick). • Using physical barriers, such as strip curtains, plexiglass, or partitions, to separate workers from each other, (watch for any risk of physical hazard). • Organizing staff into working groups or teams to facilitate reduced interaction between groups (cohorting). • Discouraging non-essential communication between employees on the production floor due to the noise level to reduce the occurrences of close contact and adopt alternate communication practices like phone and email for essential communication. • Using video apps or phone calls to prevent face-to-face contact during shift change. • Using texting, chats, free conference calling to bring teams together remotely. • Assigning pens, knives, clipboards, utensils, to individuals to minimize multiple person contact, • Reducing distance is considered possible when staff is dressed in PPE.	WHO (2020c) CDC (2020b) IDFA (2020b)
Meals/Snacks/Break Room Activities	• Practicing proper hand washing and respiratory etiquette. • Reducing the number of employees in break areas/cafeteria. • Expanding and staggering breaks and mealtimes for groups of employees. • Shifting from communal provisions to single-serve options. • Assigning a single trained employee to serve employees rather than having multiple employees taking food from a common container with utensils being touched by multiple people. • Distancing employees by using other conference rooms or separation space such as rented tents. • Intensifying sanitation of refrigerator handles/sinks and faucets/kitchenette areas/microwave and vending machine buttons. • Dispensing sanitizing wipes and soap in lunch and break rooms and/or cleaning facilities after each break. • Arranging seating to at least 1–2 m (depending on the country guidelines). • Posting signs for staff promoting hand hygiene and physical distancing.	WHO (2020c) IDFA (2020b)
Carpooling and the Use of Public Transportation	• Encouraging workers to avoid carpooling and public transportation to and from work. • Limiting the number of people per vehicle. • Increasing the number of used vehicles (if needed). • Encouraging employees to use hand hygiene before entering the vehicle and when arriving at destination. • Encouraging employees in a shared vehicle to wear masks. • Cleaning and disinfecting commonly touched surfaces after each carpool or shuttle trip (e.g., door handles, handrails, seatbelt buckles). • Encouraging employees to follow coughing and sneezing etiquette when in the vehicle.	CDC (2020b)
Receiving and Delivery Activities	• Limiting to one driver in the vehicle when possible. • Reducing or eliminating contact between the truck driver and the facility. • Advising truck drivers to stay outside the facility and/or in their trucks. • Wrapping packaged raw materials with shrink wrap and limiting touching of shrink wrap to receiving personnel, and not to production personnel. • Ensuring receiving and delivery employees to wash hands or disinfect their hands before and after unloading each truck. • Using face masks if physical distancing cannot be practiced. • Minimizing shared pens to sign transport documents. • Using disposable containers and packaging to avoid the need for cleaning of any returns. • Implementing appropriate hygiene and sanitation protocols in the case of reusable containers.	Gov (2020a) AIB International (2020) WHO (2020c)