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These are SA Breweries steps to ensure traders work responsibly under level 3

Retail 1 June 2020

The South African Breweries (SAB) has put in place several measures to minimise the risk of spreading the coronavirus (Covid-19) when the level 3 lockdown regulations kick in on Monday.

This comes after Cyril Ramaphosa announced that alcohol sales for home consumption during level 3 will be allowed, limited to Monday to Thursday from 9am to 5pm.

As one of South Africa’s largest companies, sustaining a workforce of over 5000, SAB was appreciative of the efforts by government and various industry bodies to collaborate to ensure that the required specific measures for taverns, wineries, and microbreweries were in place for safe trading to resume on June 1, the company said in a statement.

“The industry has collectively collaborated on various solutions and measures to ensure that, beginning 1 June, outlets are able to trade responsibly and adhere to strict Covid-19 safety protocols, ” SAB vice president of corporate affairs Zoleka Lisa said In the statement.

“As an industry, a lot of thought has been put into ensuring that retail outlets like taverns, microbreweries, distillers, and wine sellers are included in the regulations and that the tavern space, with the right support, is recognised as one in which trade can happen safely. This will minimise the risk of spreading Covid-19, while still allowing for economic activity to resume,” Lisa said.

To prioritise the safety of customers and retailers, and to support the government’s efforts to contain the spread of Covid-19, SAB had put certain measures in place for taverns, which included physically equipping traders for consumer contact.

To ensure that the return to trade was done as safely as possible, SAB would distribute personal protective equipment (PPE) such as cloth masks, face shields, and hand sanitisers to taverns nationwide.

This PPE would allow for high levels of sanitation in taverns, and had proved to be a tried and true method of stopping the spread of the virus.

In order to restrict human contact, SAB has worked on an initiative which is a "Click and Collect" service was a USSD model available to SAB's partners and their customers that was easy to use and very cheap.

To use Click and Collect, a customer simply had to enter the unique USSD code (*- - -#), select the products they wanted from the tavern they would like to collect from, and a timeslot in which they would collect.

On arrival, the collector would be asked to present their ID and the confirmation message they received on their cellphone after the order was placed.

Written by: Staff Writer.

Guzzle Media