Hormel / Rochelle Foods Letter

April 16, 2020

Dear Valued Partner,

All of us at Rochelle Foods are committed to keeping you informed during this COVID-19 crisis. As is true with so many manufacturing facilities, we too have been impacted by COVID-19, despite the precautionary steps we have taken to ensure the safety of our team members. 

We have decided to close our facility for 14 days to ensure a broader understanding of COVID-19 in the Rochelle community, which is based in suburban Chicago and the impact to our operations. The community has numerous positive cases and unfortunately those positive cases are impacting our ability to operate. Rochelle Foods team members will continue to be paid during the closure. We have been part of the fabric of this community for years, so this news is incredibly disappointing as we don’t want to let our customers and our team members down. 

We are working diligently to ensure that we are working to minimize the impact to the products and brands you depend upon. These products include retail bacon, including precooked bacon, Microwave Ready bacon as well as some of our Hormel® COMPLEATS, Hormel® Vital Cuisine™ Meals and Thick & Easy® Puree Meals.

We continue to ensure the highest sanitation and food safety standards are maintained in our production facilities. In fact, the local health department was complimentary of these efforts just two days before the closure order was issued. In addition to these standards, we have made enhancements that include education for team members on the COVID-19 virus, increased sanitization frequency, providing additional PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), prohibiting outside visitors and temperature taking.

As always, the health and safety of our team members remains our top priority as we continue to do our best to serve our loyal customers. We apologize for any disruption this may cause and know that we are working hard to meet your needs. We appreciate great customers like you who understand what we are all going through during this difficult time. If we can do anything for you, please don’t hesitate to let us know.

Thank you,

PJ Connor
President of Sales