COVID-19 and Foote and Flame

Posted by Daniel Foote on Tuesday, 17 March 2020.

Despite being named COVID-19, it's certainly making 2020 a challenging year for everyone. But it's time to band together and work together to flatten the curve.

As a business who operates mostly online, but still ships physical packages to customers, we've taken a few extra steps to help keep everyone safe.

At the time of posting, none of our family or staff are known to have coronavirus or have been in direct contact with someone who has. We'll certainly advise and take action if this becomes the case!

What are we doing?

• We're pausing in person local pickups for a few weeks. Instead, we'll pack and place them into the after hours locker for collection at your leisure, and without the human contact. (Not that we wouldn't love to shake your hand!)
• We're washing hands much more regularly when making and handling your items before shipping. (We wash hands very often anyway to keep your items clean and pristine!).
• We're cleaning cake topper stakes with an appropriate alcohol based cleaner. This does leave some marks on the stake, but we feel this is better than potentially spreading the virus.
• Our staff are still coming in, but we're mindful of keeping a safe distance, and mindful of how we share tools and workstations.
• We're including a note in orders shipped with the information known at the time.

What's the risk from posted packages?

The World Health Organisiation has as one of their frequently asked questions, the following:

"Is it safe to receive a package from any area where COVID-19 has been reported?

Yes. The likelihood of an infected person contaminating commercial goods is low and the risk of catching the virus that causes COVID-19 from a package that has been moved, travelled, and exposed to different conditions and temperature is also low."

This is directly from their page Q&A on coronaviruses - recorded on the 16th of March 2020.

We're still mindful of how we pack and handle your products to make them as safe as possible. As stated before, we're not aware of anyone with COVID-19 who is in contact with our packages, further lowering the risk, but we're being carefully aware.

Stock issues?

We're fortunate to have large local stocks of most materials, and the balance of materials are generally sourced from local suppliers. At this stage we don't anticipate any issues with stock to make items, but are monitoring closely.

It's a challenging time

This is definitely a challenging time for everyone, everywhere - in Australia and abroad. However, by working together on a global scale we've not seen before, we can get through this. And it'll make for a very interesting story for our grandchildren.

We really appreciate your support during this time. If you have any questions related to this, please let us know!