Sep 25, 2019

By Doug Baker, Vice President, Industry Relations, Food Marketing Institute
flashlight

When the lights suddenly go out at the Baker household my family knows the plan. My wife grabs the candles, I get out the batteries and flashlights, we conserve our cellphone power and keep the refrigerator door closed. But, the most important thing we do when the lights go out at home is call the power company to report the outage — this helps identify the issue in our community and returns power faster.

When the lights go out at the grocery store, especially when it is related to a natural disaster, a similar action plan is needed. Like my family, one of the first and most critical steps is reporting the store status. While an individual store may report their status to headquarters, how is that information being reported to federal, state and local governments? Especially during a hurricane, tornado, earthquake or flood, notifying government authorities about the status of your stores can help get your doors reopened sooner.

FMI is partnering with SABER, the Single Automated Business Exchange for Reporting, to offer food retailers a streamlined system for reporting business status following a natural disaster or other crisis event. SABER improves how the private sector provides business status information to federal, state and local government agencies. Here’s how SABER works:

  • Food retailers and other businesses pre-enroll in SABER for free and are set up with a simple spreadsheet that gets uploaded to SABER’s website. SABER can also work with companies to build an automated connection.
  • When the lights go out, food retailers use SABER to report business status information. This information populates the SABER Status Map.
  • Federal, state and local governments utilize the SABER Status Map to coordinate response efforts. For example, FEMA may provide funding for a generator to a specific store to help them open their doors sooner and better serve the community in need.

FMI has joined with SABER because we believe that this system saves time; improves timeliness and accuracy of information; and reduces gaps, overlaps, and inconsistencies in the critical information that governments use to prioritize response decisions.

When the lights go out, you need backup plan. We encourage all food retailers to pre-enroll in SABER at no cost so their first step in a response backup plan is in place. To learn more, watch our webinar discussion about SABER.

Enroll in SABER