Managing the uncertainty during COVID-19 pandemic: Communicating disaster and food industry sustainability

The global COVID-19 pandemic has affected different industries including the food industry with the fear of transmission of virus. Challenges currently facing the food industry is the food waste and stale food in restaurants, bars and hotels, and rebuilding the trust of people to visit these places given the protocols introduced by the government. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to determine how the food industry and the government should address the sustainability and financial recovery particularly the affected F&B places. The data was gathered from 500 respondents in Indonesia. The findings of the study reveal that majority no longer visits the F&B places and the fear and lack trust with the government’s restrictions was the confirmed reason. For the 38% respondents who already visited these places, they trust the establishments complying with the health and safe protocols. These findings provide insights for F&B places, food industry and the government to develop strategies that will rebuild trust and confidence with the government with proper communication and consequently boost the sustainability of food industry.


Introduction
Since the early outbreak of nCoronavirus (SARS-COV2) or COVID-19, the fear of food industry sustainability be a recent discussion [1], [2]. The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is thought to cause COVID-19, a transmittable disease that affects individuals by cough, sneezing, respiratory droplets, or exhalation [3]. COVID-19 has typical symptoms of appearance and symptoms with two documented diseases of the lower respiratory tract Extreme Acute Respiratory Syndrome: "SARS-CoV" and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome: "MERS" [4]. The outbreak challenges the food and beverages (F&B) industry, since the closure of the hotel, bar, and restaurant. Indonesian government introduce the community quarantine (lock-down) and close the restaurant for dine-in service [5].
Since the first epidemic in Indonesia (March 2020), most restaurants and cafeterias around the world have been closed down and are now only open for take-away or delivery services [6]. The transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is regulated closely by food safety agencies around the world, such as . Both groups accept that there is no evidence to date (30 May 2020) that food is a possible route of transmission; however, they intend to collect information on the potential presence of the virus in food [7].
Many people have attempted to break the chain of transmission of this virus. Much of the people favor this petition. Part of the population advocates or calls for community quarantine (lockdown) to limit the transmission of this virus. However, not a few individuals have also declined for different reasons, including that of the economy. The mortality rate of coronary virus patients in Indonesia is higher than in other nations. This is troubling for the general public. Various efforts have been made by the Local, District, Hospital, National Task Force, and various other stakeholders. Independent attempts have been rendered by the group by adopting the recommendation of the government to remain at home, to lift issues for low-income and day-to-day populations, to distribute disinfectants individually, and to disseminate knowledge to the closest network area. Openness and the distribution of information will decide what the society is doing and will consider the circumstances underway. The more knowledge is provided accurately and freely, the more people are assured of what is happening in society and the world. This situation would foster social cohesion in society providing psychological support.
Knowledge dissemination of the COVID-19 virus has been answered significantly in Indonesia. Most people are fearful that this epidemic will become a pandemic that targets Indonesia. Social networking is a tool for disseminating complaints and warnings about a bad virus attack [8], [9]. The WHO warned Indonesia from the beginning of 2020. The specialists continuously warning everybody. Fear over the onset of a bad virus is becoming the everyday discourse of the population, both in direct talk and on social media. However, the Government of Indonesia has a different approach to this alert. The government appears to believe that there will be no such attack in Indonesia. The Government then disbursed huge amounts of money for tourist projects and opened the doors of Indonesian tourism to the international community. This received a variety of comments from the public. Many citizens are nervous about the size of the government's focus as a policy error [10], [11].
Indonesian authorities introduce the concept of "new normal" starting of July 2020, which allows people to visit restaurant, bar, and hotel for dine-in services. At the same time, the fear of the super-spreader of COVID-19 also voices by the netizen alongside in social media. The hoax, misleading information increasing the insecurities of people [12]- [14] The food industry faces the two significant challenges among the COVID-19 pandemics, first, the lack of stable demand for food needed. Most of the restaurant and hotel chains face a lot of food waste and stale food [15]. Due to the massive fear and terror on social media, people think twice about food safety during this pandemic. Even, the Indonesian authorities allow the restaurant to serve dine-in services with limited restriction and strict health protocol, the food industries should terminate among 70% of their human resource due of the lack of demand and uncertain of sustainability [16], [17]. The second challenge is to rebuild the trust of the people among the food. These limits on people's rights and disturbance of the food system give yet more incentive to ensure that everyone has the right to nutritious food and the right to health. On the other hand, while grocery stores, and supermarkets have become a strong pandemic barometer, food shopping remains one of the few activities that people have recognized as everyday life. Meanwhile, the misleading information on social media slightly tends to the decrease in food consumption. The revival economics sector being slow and step backward.

Methods
A quantitative approach was employed to describe how people face uncertainty during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper will be focusing on people activities on F&B Industries during these COVID-19 pandemics. The authors distributed 500 questionnaires to Indonesian adults with purposive sampling. Google form survey was deployed which strictly requires the valid google email address to guarantee each person only accomplishes once. Otherwise, the authors distribute the questionnaire via the link to a specific audience to maintain the balanced distribution of samples on each province of Indonesia. The questionnaire distribution held on July 2020, after the Indonesian authorities announce the concept of New Normal and open the option to allow people to dine-in.

Results
Based on the results, the authors found most of the respondents (52%) never visits the restaurant, bar and hotel during the COVID-19 pandemic even if the government lifted the restrictions (See Figure 1). Meanwhile, about 11% of respondents already visit the restaurant, bar, and hotel during this pandemics. Majority of the respondents confirmed that they visit F&B places because of trust and they are confident that these establishments comply with the health and safety protocols (See Figure 2).  Most of the respondents never visits the F&B places because of trust on the government measures in handling the pandemic (92%, see Figure 3). This degree is showing the insecurities should be considered by the Indonesian authorities to manage during this pandemic. The low level of trust of government to handle the COVID-19 correlated with this insecurities, fear and lack of certainties. People are confronted with the fear that the Indonesian government will not be able to handle the outbreak of COVID-19, and in particular local transmission..

Discussion and Conclusion
Coronavirus can enter fresh food products (e.g. vegetables, fruit or pastries) or food containers across an infected person who sneezes or coughs directly on each other. Transmission tends to be feasible if the virus is passed to the mucous membranes of the mouth, throat, or eyes shortly afterward through the hands or food itself. Related to the fear of people questioning food safety, the solution to gain people's confidence is to demonstrate the level of safety and hygine. The government should require the food industry to comply with the strict health protocol. To reduce the possibility of interaction with foods possibly susceptible to coronavirus, the handling of food shipments and food items should be accompanied by hand washing or alcohol usage of 70%. The FDA has indicated that proper health practices, as well as washing and sanitizing kitchen and restaurant surfaces, are favored precautionary steps relative to the environmental control of SARS-CoV-2.
While it is not known how long SARS-CoV-2 can live on air and surfaces, it seems likely to behave like other coronaviruses, e.g. SARS-CoV. A new analysis of the survival of human coronaviruses on surfaces found a wide variability from 2 hours to 9 days. SARS-CoV-2 remains viable in aerosols for 3 hours, but is still detectable on the surface after 72 hours. However, after a certain period, the load of the virus is substantially decreased, i.e. the efficacy of SARS-CoV-2 on stainless steel and plastic is ~5.6 and 6.8 hours respectively. On the other hand, no viable SARS-CoV-2 was tested on copper and carton after 4 and 24 hours of use. Efficient inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 with traditional disinfectants (e.g. 62-71 per cent ethanol, 0.5 per cent hydrogen peroxide or 0.1 sodium hypochlorite l) may be achieved [7]. This protocol can be communicate by government social media agency (Buzzer) to gain the degree level of people trust about Food safety. Related with the Susilo, Prabowo, and Putranto finding about managing the secure based feeling [18], massive expossure of the right health protocol on food industry can release the higher impact of people' trust and eliminate the uncertainty [19] to boost the sustainability of food industry.
The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to a new age in the agricultural supply chain and food industry. We are all mindful of the effects of civilization, the climate and food safety. Researchers and food workers face numerous challenges, such as maintaining food protection, identifying SARS-CoV-2 in areas where food is grown, stored and transported, sanitizing surfaces and working conditions properly, and others. As long as we transition through the final stages of the supply chain, more intervention is required as more individuals are involved in the process. The probability of COVID-19 transmission through the food system is currently considered to be negligible, while the detection of SARS-CoV-2 in the food sector and the natural area is not considered to be a concern for public authorities. However, switching to a post-locking routine, public health surveillance will increasingly rely on the advancement of applicable bioanalytical instruments. This strategy may not only concern the screening of populations but also the surveillance of food, surfaces and surrounding environments.
The extended lockdown did not affect the people trust of government handling the situation. The food and beverages industry may not be sustain until 2021 if the degree of people trust not increase to 80% as the Indonesian Hotel Association expect [20]. The Indonesian government can use the model of Secure Based Feeling Communication via Social Media to reduce the uncertainty [18]. The information about Safety and Hygine Standard can be shift as focus of public information blast by the government buzzer.