Name: How General Mills is working to keep our nation fed during the pandemic
Uploaded: 2020-04-27T18:41:22.000Z
Duration: 3 min 33 s
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our country's consumer packaged goods industry and the 1,000,000 who support supply chains are working overtime to keep up with the unprecedented demand for essential household items.

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Chairman and CEO of General Mills Jeff Harmony joins us now to discuss how they're working to keep our nation fed during this pandemic.

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I want to start by talking about the fact that your company, General Mills, literally on the front line of food production a huge part of the main food supply here in the U.

Well, thank you and thanks for having me.

And I look, I couldn't be more proud of the people of General Mills, especially those who are working on our front lines, which is that our manufacturing plants and for us, the demand is ah is unprecedented as people bake more.

I think we've babe or banana bread in the Harmony House in the last couple weeks, and we have in the past three years combined, and it's through the heroic efforts of people in our manufacturing plants, and so are our supply.

I think it's because General Mills people in the know that usually we make the food the world loves.

But now we're making food the world needs as restaurants are closed.

Measures are being taken to make sure that your manufacturing is running safely while at the same time, like you said, ensuring those essential products remain available to the American public?

Yes, so in the in this time, our 1st 3 priorities are the safety of our people and the safety of our food supply, and then finally given back to the communities which we think we have a responsibility to do and so to keep people safe.

All of her office workers, um, have are working from home, you know, effective ah, a month and 1/2 ago.

And for those working at the plants, I think the key the first keys to make sure that we provide enough compensation for those to stay at home when they need to stay home and have policies that allow for them to take leave, but also then reward them for being there and doing the great work that we do so we have done those things.

But then once they get to the manufacturing plant, we need to make sure they're safe there.

So we do a lot of social social distancing measures and, ah, thermometer and temperature checks as as well as mass.

And so, up to this point, I am proud to say we've had very, very few illnesses at our plants, and I think it's due to the efforts we've taken as a company.

Teoh make sure we have healthy people at work, and when they get there, they stay healthy.

You mentioned giving back talk specifically about how General Mills is addressing the hunger needs and giving back to your community Well, for General Mills, this is kind of natural for us.

I mean, more than 83% of General Mills employees volunteer in the community is anyway, But during this time, I think it's particularly important, and we have put our emphasis on giving back, particularly on food shelves, and we've donated $5 million to help support food shelves in the U.

We're also, I think, really importantly, food shelves have some money, but what they really need his product.

And so we're making some product at some of our plants manufacturing plants that are usually used to serve restaurants.

But because restaurants are not open you instead of laying the workers off, we're producing product that are plants, and we think that's great for our employees.

It makes are the rest of our employees feel good, and it is certainly helping with the food in these right now, because there are a lot of people who just can't afford given unemployment.

There certainly are, and we're certainly applaud all of your efforts.

Jeff Harmony with General Mills Thank you for being with us.

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