Welcome to Boss Files. I'm Poppy Harlow.

For the next several weeks, we're looking at how leaders from all around the world are making tough choices for their businesses, their customers, and their employees during the coronavirus pandemic.

Today, I'm talking with Beth Ford, CEO of Minnesota-based Landel Lakes. You know them, of course, for the butter and the milk

you see on the grocery store shelves across the country. So many of you, especially parents,

have been asking me, is there enough food? How sound is the food supply, given all of the panic

buying and those images of empty store shelves? So I wanted to have Beth on to ask her exactly that.

Yeah, there's plenty of food right now, and actually farmers are still working. This is an essential

industry is defined by the government, but it actually is defined by all of us, and we know that.

And what about the supply chain and delivering all of that food with cities on lockdown. And what does that mean for farmers

across the heartland? Plus, being a CEO of a Fortune 500 company at home with teenage kids,

we get into all of it.

The good news is we put in a little structure for them. Hey, first in the morning, you got to get

some physical activity workout a little bit, do something, stretch. We're trying to make them do all sorts of chores.

Here's our conversation.

Hi, Beth. Thanks for doing this. You're welcome, Poppy. Thanks for asking.

All right, so let's just start on the very basic question. And for some background here, by the way, you CEO of Landau Lakes in Minnesota, my home state, I've known you for years. And, you know, the heartland is close to my heart, certainly, and all these farmers and really feeding America. So let's just talk about that. Is there enough food, Beth, right now, even if this crisis persists, the 18 months

that is being potentially projected by the federal government? Yeah, there's plenty of food right now,

and actually farmers are still working. This is an essential industry as defined by the government,

but it actually is defined by all of us, and we know that. So farmers are still working. They're in

the field. We have enough supply. Milk production is strong, for instance, right now. I think that the concern that is voiced at the moment is distribution

challenges. And then over the long term, as we get back into the fields, especially in the

grain side and the grower side, and then as we're in harvest in Florida on citrus and that is that is labor availability.

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