Behind the Business - COVID-19 Concerns

We know everyone's inboxes are flooded right now with emails from companies explaining their response to COVID-19.  As a small family business, we rely on your orders to help keep our business running.  But we know that many people are concerned about the current global pandemic, as they should be.  We wanted to offer some information on our practices in case you are concerned about ordering from us at this time.  Most of these items are routine for our company, but now seems like a good time to remind our customers of the way things run around here!

1. All of our products are made in Poland. We work with small businesses in Poland, direct importing all the products we sell from the artisans who make them.  Our last shipment from Poland arrived in Fall 2019, which means all of our products were made prior to that. 
2. We do not use dropshippers.  All of our items come directly from Poland to our own facility.  We have full control of the supply chain and who comes in contact with our products from the moment it arrives in the US until it is shipped to our customers. 
3. We have been working over the last year to transition to a method of prepacking products for shipping in order to allow a more streamlined order packing process.  We did this primarily for our work flow, but in light of the current global concerns it has become a huge advantage.  Because items are already packed for shipping, we have minimal contact with the products themselves at this time.  For the majority of orders we are able to simply insert the packing list, tape the box closed and affix the shipping label without actually touching the products themselves.  We've been utilizing this method since August of 2019, and will continue for the foreseeable future.
4. We only have 2 people in our organization which are involved with the packing and shipping of orders, and because we work out of our own space we are able to practice social distancing while still preparing and shipping orders.  We are following CDC guidelines.
5. Our schools statewide are currently closed as a preemptive measure to slow the spread of the virus.  (We are in Illinois for those that don't know!)
6. Should anyone in our organization show signs of sickness or have knowledge of exposure to COVID-19 we will suspend order processing and shipping until the risk has passed.  We will update this information should any changes occur.

At this time we are able to prepare and ship orders with no impact to our typical processing times.  We have not been informed of any changes to UPS or USPS shipping procedures and therefore anticipate continuing to operate as normal for as long as that is an option.  As a small family business we are used to working from home, and count ourselves lucky to have little impact on our work lives because of COVID-19. 

This information will be updated should our situation change, which understandably is happening a lot at this time.  Stay safe everyone and if you find yourself with some free time at home, why not try fermenting to pass the time?