Meat industry warns a Covid-19 Omicron outbreak among its 15,000 workers would have a significant impact during peak season

Friday, 21 January 2022

Alliance Group keeping staff in working bubbles to mitigate any Omicron community outbreak.

New Zealand meat plants are bracing for a wave of staff illness if the Omicron Covid-19 variant hits as they head into peakprocessing season

Silver Fern Farms said chief executive Simon Limmer said the timing was bad because its peak workforce of 7000 was already 550 short, and he wanted the Government to re-examine its border rules for seasonal workers.

Good weather conditions had alleviated pressure on farmers who had more feed than usual, but that could change.

“Any significant dry period from this point on, coupled with labour-related capacity reductions, will create livestock pressure on farm,” Limmer said.

Alliance Group general manager manufacturing Willie Wiese preparing to operate around Omicron.

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Alliance Group general manager manufacturing Willie Wiese said the company was warning farmers that Omicron could significantly increase staff absences in its team of about 4800 and reduce processing capacity.

He said that farmers needed to be aware of this possibilitywhen assessing how long to leave lambs fattening.

Emergency Departments are preparing to see an onslaught of Omicron cases, once the Covid-19 variant starts spreading in the community.

“This is not something small, we are analysing how Omicron could affect us and the integration of staff back to work after having it, and we are very aware of the risk to international trade,” Wiese said.

He said Alliance was working hard to keep its hygiene protocols at the standard needed to keep trade open with China in particular, and keeping staff well at its seven plants.

The value of New Zealand’s red meat sector exports reached $693 million during October, a 27 per cent increase year-on-year, according to an analysis by the Meat Industry Association (MIA).

The major sheep meat markets by value were China, up 25 per cent to $131m, the United States, up 54 per cent to $46m, and the Netherlands, up 94 per cent to $29m.

“If we lost a meat shipment to China because of a Covid hygiene issue, it would be very hard to recover and get back into the trade flow quickly, we’re doing everything we can to avoid this,” Wiese said.

Alliance Group staff work in separate bubbles that take their breaks together and the plant operates a track and trace system within the work areas.

Health officials are currently predicting that Omicron will overtake Delta as the predominant Covid-19 variant in New Zealand two to four weeks after an outbreak occurs.

ANZCO Foods operates seven meat processing sites and two manufacturing sites employing about 3000 staff.

Chief executive Peter Conley said the company was monitoring what was happening overseas with Omicron and staff illness.

“We have plans in place to manage Omicron, however we recognise we’ll have to be nimble because we don’t know when where or how it will impact us,” Conley said.

“Being an essential business we have been operating, and continue to operate, with strict protocols in place at our sites including health monitoring, additional PPE, facilities to keep employees distanced during their breaks and teams working in bubbles.”