Maxima To Ensure Long Term Covid-19 Safety Measures

June 08, 2020

COVID-19 has prompted significant changes in the retail sector, leaving an impact on the shopping habits to society of Latvia. More than a third of people[1] state that one of their top criteria when choosing where to shop is COVID-19 safety measures in shops. As a result of this change in shopping habits, and in order to adapt to the priorities of our customers, Maxima will maintain safety measures for employees, client and food safety in its stores after the cease of State of Emergency.

To ensure social distancing and food safety, a range of preventative measures have been implemented which will be maintained onwards: for example, protective glass barriers between the client and cashier; and face masks for self-service checkout staff which will be available for use also after June 9th. Hand sanitisers have been placed at store entrances, and floor stickers have been installed to help ensure social distancing. Meanwhile, fresh baked goods and products previously sold on weight will be availiable pre-packaged. Similarly, the public is encouraged to continue using contactless payments for fast, convenient shopping.

Maxima Latvija adapted to the new circumstances within 48 hours, implementing a range of safety measures in all 175 stores. Having seen that these initiatives not only help to successfully limit the spread of COVID-19 but also improve the customer shopping experience, we have decided to ensure availability of all safety once the state of emergency ends. We are pleased that the preventative measures implemented so far have brought results which can be seen not just in our relatively low number of cases compared with neighbouring countries, but also within the Maxima Latvija team, as all COVID-19 tests have been negative,” comments Gunita Ķiesnere, Maxima Latvija Retail Operations & Human Resources Director.
 
For the benefit of employee, customer and food safety, Maxima Latvija has implemented a range of additional preventative measures:
  • Protective glass barriers at checkouts between the cashier and customer.
  • Social distancing limitations within a 2m radius, such as floor stickers, the use of trolleys instead of baskets to ensure a physically larger barrier between customers, security personnel supervising shoppers and other measures.
  • Protective glass masks available to staff working at self-service checkouts.
  • An extensive informative campaign in stores using TV screens, overhead announcements and posters throughout stores with advice on how to limit the spread of the virus.
  • Packaging loose products such as baked goods.
  • Hand sanitisers at store entrances.
  • All employees of the company offered hand sanitisers so that, for example, cashiers can keep their hands clean at the checkouts.
  • We are also implementing many other measures to limit the virus in collaboration with the relevant government institutions and services, and if necessary we are willing to implement additional activities.
 
 
Information for the media:
Liene Dupate-Ugule
Head of Communications, SIA "Maxima Latvija"
Tel.: 26425420
email: liene.dupate@maxima.lv
www.maxima.lv
 
[1] Survey respondents