Today California officials issued guidance regarding retail food, beverage and other service venues. These venues bring people from multiple communities into close contact with each other and have the potential to increase the transmission of COVID-19.

“These are aggressive, but necessary actions to protect our communities,” said Governor Gavin Newsom. “We all have a role to play when it comes to preventing the spread of COVID-19. These establishments that are remaining open should think creatively about how they can continue to provide services to the community. Shifting operations to focus on pick up and delivery options should be prioritized.”

The guidance will protect individuals attending and working at these venues and prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the community

Retail Beverage Service Venues:

• Bars, wineries, breweries and pubs should be closed, except for restaurants that contain bars that serve meals provided by a full kitchen (see restaurant guidance below).
• This guidance is not intended to affect production of beer and wine.  
• Bars, breweries, pubs, and wineries that include meals provided by a full kitchen should follow the restaurant guidance below.

Restaurants/Cafeterias:

• Reduce occupancy and capacity by 50 percent.
• Increase frequency of cleaning of menus, cash registers, receipt trays, condiment holders, writing instruments and other non-food contact surfaces that are frequently touched.
• Ensure that social distancing of six feet per person for non-family members is maintained and make clear that family members can participate together, stand in line together, etc.
• Limiting the number of people in lines.
• Separate spaces in the dining area into smaller components.
• Increase frequency of cleaning and sanitizing per CDC Environmental Cleaning and Disinfection guidance.
• Increase cleaning and sanitizing frequency of restroom and other high contact areas.
• Eliminate events/marketing that target individuals that the CDPH has identified as higher risk of serious illness for COVID-19.
• Restaurants that have drive-through or other pick-up/delivery options should encourage use of these when possible.

Food Trucks:

• Increase frequency of cleaning of menus, cash registers, receipt trays, condiment holders, writing instruments and other non-food contact surfaces that are frequently touched.
• Ensure that social distancing of six feet per person for non-family members is maintained and make clear that family members can participate together, stand in line together, etc.
• Limiting the number of people in lines.
• Increase frequency of cleaning and sanitizing per CDC Environmental Cleaning and Disinfection guidance of all hard surfaces.
• Remind employees of best hygiene practices including washing their hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds.

Grocery Stores and Charitable Food Distribution Sites

• Ensure that social distancing of six feet per person for non-family members is maintained and make clear that family members can participate in activities together, stand in line together, etc.
• Limiting the number of customers at any given time as necessary to reduce outdoor/indoor crowding and lines to meet social distancing guidance.
• Increase cleaning and sanitizing frequency of restroom and other high contact areas.
• Eliminate events/marketing that target individuals that CDPH has identified as higher risk of serious illness for COVID-19.
• Stores that have online ordering with outside pick-up or delivery options should encourage use of these when possible instead of indoor shopping.

Certified Farmers’ Markets

• Space booths accordingly to increase social distancing among patrons in line and walking about the market.
• Ensure that social distancing of six feet per person for non-family members is maintained and make clear that family members can participate in activities together, stand in line together, etc.
• Limit the number of customers at any given time as necessary to reduce outdoor/indoor crowding and lines to meet social distancing guidance.
• Eliminate events/marketing that target individuals that CDPH has identified as higher risk of serious illness for COVID-19.
• Encourage activities such as pre-bagging to expedite purchasing.
• Suspend sampling activities.
• Increase frequency of cleaning of tables, payment devices, and other surfaces.
• Eliminate non-essential/non-related services, such as bands or other entertainment.

The full guidance is available here.

California continues to issue guidance on preparing and protecting California from COVID-19. Consolidated guidance is available on California Department of Public Health’s Guidance page.

For more information on COVID-19 and California’s response visit the California Department of Public Health’s website.

The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) is serving Californians during the COVID-19 pandemic by continuing its work to facilitate a safe, healthy food supply.

“Food safety is paramount due to the nutrition provided by California fruits, nuts, vegetables, meat, eggs and dairy products to the health and wellbeing of our citizens,” said CDFA Secretary Karen Ross. “We know the importance of keeping supply chains healthy and borders open as currently one in eight individuals is food insecure, with one in five of those being children.”

CDFA is continuing its food inspection work while the agency’s senior leadership is utilizing extensive experience in sanitary practices, preventative controls, and emergency response to work closely with the California Office of Emergency Services, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH), sister state agencies, federal partners, county agricultural commissioners, and the agriculture industry to ensure that California’s bounty can be relied upon as a large contributor to the overall food system and supply.

FOOD SAFETY CONCERNS AND COVID-19

CDPH is hosting a COVID-19 Updates website. Via the Guidance Documents section of the page, there is a Food Industry document that addresses common questions about COVID-19, including the continued safety of the food supply chain. The fact sheet, in part, references a statement from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration: “FDA is not aware of any reports at this time of human illnesses that suggests COVID-19 can be transmitted by food or food packaging.”

CDPH, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) also state there is currently no evidence to support transmission of COVID-19 associated with food or food packaging. The CDC is reporting that, in general, because of poor survivability of the coronavirus on surfaces, there is likely a low risk of spread from food products or packaging that are shipped over a period of days or weeks at ambient, refrigerated or frozen temperatures.

In regard to food safety and hygiene by the food system work force, California’s standards are among the highest nationally. These include worker health and hygiene standards supported by labor laws that are specific about paid sick leave for people possibly affected by COVID-19 and unable to work. Food manufacturers have been required by longstanding federal and state laws and regulations to prevent anyone who is sick or has a communicable disease from handling, processing or preparing food for human consumption. Thus, industries handling food and agricultural commodities are well practiced at this important and general principle of food safety and hygiene.

CDFA, CDPH, USDA, CDC and FDA recommend that the best food safety advice for consumers and businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic is to practice good hygiene, which begins with washing your hands.

From a UC Riverside News Release

Entomologists at UC Riverside have documented that a species of native sweat bee widespread throughout North and South America has a daily routine that makes it a promising pollinator.

Because the bee can thrive in environments that have been highly modified by humans, such as cities and agricultural areas, it could become a suitable supplement to honeybees, which are expensive for farmers to rent and threatened by pesticides and climate change.

Sweat bees are not as famous as their prolific cousin, the European honeybee, but are common in natural, urban, and agricultural areas in North America. Sweat bees, along with other native bees like bumble bees, are valuable pollinators of many wildflowers and cultivated crop plants, yet often do not receive the level of public attention that honeybees do.

In a paper published in the journal Ecology, Ph.D. candidate Jacob Cecala, and Erin Wilson Rankin, an associate professor of entomology, describe in-depth for the first time a foraging behavior of a small, common, and often-overlooked species of sweat bee, Halictus ligatus. The species is classified as a “generalist,” meaning it is known to feed on many kinds of flowers. But no one knew how flexible individuals are in their flower selection, and whether an individual’s floral choices varied day-to-day.

To explore this species’ daily routine, Cecala captured sweat bees while feeding on flowers in several commercial plant nurseries across Southern California. Nurseries grow many different species of plants in close proximity to one another, so they are useful for studying bees’ foraging choices. He marked the bees with different colored dots of non-toxic paint to track which plants they were visiting.

He returned the next day and caught almost 52% of the marked bees again. Cecala repeated this experiment four times in summer and four times in autumn and recaptured around 50% each time. Virtually all–96%–were found on the same plant species as on the first day, indicating that most individual bees fed on the same plant species day-to-day. The findings suggest it is common for individual bees to make consistent choices about what to forage on across days.

“These results are encouraging given that plant nurseries are, relatively speaking, artificial man-made habitats. You would expect really intense agricultural and urban areas to be pretty devoid of biodiversity but these native bees are flying around and visiting the plants and using them as pollen and nectar resources,” Cecala said.

The study also documented a 45% higher probability of recapturing the bees on California native plant species than on plant species exotic to California. This varied somewhat by season. Recapture rates were higher on the native plants in the summer, suggesting seasonal differences in how the bees forage. While this suggests native plants are more valuable to these bees, many individuals still showed fidelity to non-native plants.

Much remains to be learned about Halictus ligatus feeding behaviors, but the high plant fidelity reported in the study probably indicates a smaller foraging range, which would be consistent with their small body size, and useful for commercial pollination.

Even though the study took place inside plant nurseries, its findings have implications for commercial crop pollination on farms. While farmers must pay to rent commercial honeybee hives, native bees like sweat bees provide pollination services free of charge.

“Honeybees, which are larger, forage much farther,” Rankin added. “Even if you put honeybees in your field there’s nothing to say they’re not actually going two farms over, whereas these sweat bees forage repeatedly on plants right around the area where they live.”

“These wild bees are pretty good, consistent pollinators,” Cecala said. “If you have these sweat bees in the area, it’s in your best interest to conserve them in whatever way you can, because they are probably visiting crops each day, not just passing through.”

This study reinforces that certain plants publicly available at nurseries can serve as dependable resources for native bees. By planting a variety of different flowers around their homes, and ensuring they are free of insecticides, anyone can help these native bees.

Link to news release on EurekaAlert!

The 2019 crush totaled 4,114,672 tons, down 8.7 percent from the 2018 crush of 4,506,010 tons. Red wine varieties accounted for the largest share of all grapes crushed, at 2,157,061 tons, down 11.9 percent from 2018. The 2019 white wine variety crush totaled 1,762,085 tons, down 3.9 percent from 2018. Tons crushed of raisin type varieties totaled 61,056, down 26.0 percent from 2018, and tons crushed of table type varieties totaled 134,470, down 5.6 percent from 2018.

The Grape Crush Report includes the total number of tons crushed for concentrate production. In determining grape tonnage crushed for concentrate production, each processor was required to report the estimated equivalent tons of grapes crushed for grape concentrate. For the 2019 season, this total was 409,307 tons, 9.9 percent of the 2019 grape crush total. This report provides only the aggregate figure for grapes crushed for concentrate production and does not include information by district, type, or variety.

The 2019 average price of all varieties was $811.04, down 2.5 percent from 2018. Average prices for the 2019 crop by type were as follows: red wine grapes, $1,019.56, nearly the same as 2018; white wine grapes, $589.54, down 7.2 percent from 2018; raisin grapes, $245.05, down 18.9 percent; and table grapes, $262.66, up 36.8 percent.

Leading Grape Varieties and Districts

In 2019, Chardonnay continued to account for the largest percentage of the total crush volume with 15.6 percent.  Cabernet Sauvignon accounted for the second leading percentage of crush with 14.1 percent.  Thompson Seedless, the leading raisin grape variety crushed for 2019, was only 1.1 percent of the total crush.

District 13, (Madera, Fresno, Alpine, Mono, Inyo Counties; and Kings and Tulare Counties north of Nevada Avenue (Avenue 192)), had the largest share of the State’s crush, at 1,307,542 tons.  The average price per ton in District 13 was $301.10.

Grapes produced in District 4 (Napa County) received the highest average price of $5,769.31 per ton, up 3.4 percent from 2018.  District 3 (Sonoma and Marin counties) received the second highest return of $2,845.92, up 1.0 percent from 2018.  The 2019 Chardonnay price of $912.72 was down 6.0 percent from 2018 and the Cabernet Sauvignon price of $1,769.32 was up 5.1 percent from 2018.  The 2019 average price for Zinfandel was $583.42, down 2.7 percent from 2018, while the Pinot Noir average price was down 6.3 percent from 2018 at $1,570.59 per ton.

The entire Grape Crush Report is available online in both PDF and spreadsheet format at www.nass.usda.gov/ca.

USDA News Release

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has approved a request from California to allow meal service during school closures to minimize potential exposure to the coronavirus. These meals are available at no cost to low-income children – and are not required to be served in a group setting – to ensure kids receive nutritious meals while schools are temporarily closed.

“USDA stands with the people of California as a part of a federal-wide coordinated response,” said Brandon Lipps, Deputy Under Secretary for USDA’s Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services. “The flexibility provided by the waiver approved today will help ensure that our children get wholesome meals, safeguarding their health during times of need.”

The waiver is effective immediately and will continue through June 30, 2020. USDA stands ready to provide additional assistance to the people of California and other areas impacted by the coronavirus as allowed by law and in coordination with the much larger government-wide response.

All Food and Nutrition Service programs – including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); Special Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); and the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs – have flexibilities and contingencies built-in to allow them to respond to on-the-ground realities in the event of a disaster or emergency situation. For more information about the coronavirus response across USDA, please visit: https://www.usda.gov/coronavirus.

USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service administers 15  nutrition assistance programs that leverage American’s agricultural abundance to ensure children and low-income individuals and families have nutritious food to eat. FNS also co-develops the  Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which provide science-based nutrition recommendations and serve as the cornerstone of federal nutrition policy.