Like many Fresno State faculty members, Neil Tung is adjusting to a new teaching environment the past month. Response to the COVID-19 pandemic has also significantly impacted his full-time job as a purchasing manager for commercial food supplier Rob Ross Foods.
The Agricultural Business Department lecturer spends part of each weekday this semester teaching management and computer application classes. The rest of his day involves buying and selling key baking ingredients like flour from Central California and as far away as Montana.
He also acquires shortenings and fillings for cakes and pastries, and related specialty products from Mexico and Indonesia. Customers range from doughnut shops and bakeries to school districts, grocery stores and smaller markets, including those from different cultures like Mexican panaderías.
In his 17 years working for the largest bakery supplier in Central California, he has never seen such a sudden rise and drop in orders. First, it was the demand for orders to meet the consumer shopping panic in mid-March, followed by a decline in sales by almost 40%.
“Some of our customers were not considered essential services and could not allow customers inside,” said Tung. “Other operations don’t have the technology to take orders over the phone or through apps and deliver products. Even some of the ones that could work with curbside pickup or call-in orders were still affected because they aren’t native English speakers and can have difficulty taking these specific orders.”
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