Victoria's meat processing facilities have stepped up production in the wake of a lift in workforce capacity limits from 67 per cent to between 80 and 90pc from last Sunday night.
Since the new levels were announced, the 14-day rolling average of new COVID-19 cases to September 29 in Melbourne had dropped to 16.4 and regional Victoria had dropped to 0.3.
Premier Daniel Andrews said under the latest rules, regional abattoirs and processors would be able to increase capacity to 90pc while metro-based facilities would increase to 80pc.
At the same time, recognising the increased risk in some of these environments, there would be additional obligations for employers, he said.
These included regular surveillance testing of staff, nightly deep cleaning, separating workers into consistent bubbles, and providing regular training for their workers.
"Frontline industries have been critical in keeping Victoria going during the pandemic - they have kept our supermarket shelves stocked, our abattoirs working and delivering essential goods," he said.
"Beginning with the food production sector, the Government will work with industry to ensure employees can get tested on a regular basis.
"All medium and large employers in the meat, poultry, seafood processing and supermarket and refrigerated distribution sectors will be asked to ensure that a quarter of their workforces are tested each week.
"This applies to all workers operating from their work premises - and will lead to the majority of a workforce being tested over the course of a month," Mr Andrews said.
Australian Meat Industry Council executive officer, Patrick Hutchinson, said industry welcomed the increase in capacity limits, but needed more information about the testing regime.
He said there was little information around the testing.
Mr Hutchinson said the bulk of processing capacity was in regional areas and the bulk of those had already been conducting asymptomatic testing of their workforce and had done for some months.
Those regional areas also had limited or no cases in the past couple of months.
"We would be testing people that could never be exposed to it because they are not leaving the regional area," he said.
Mr Hutchinson said the industry wanted to sit down and have the epidemiological outcomes and reasoning behind these decisions explained and how authorities were going to help.
He said the testing of the meat industry workforce was because there was a stigma attached to meat processing facilities, even though 90pc of meat processing facilities had not had a case of Covid.
There was not one case of Covid in a meat processing facility outside Victoria, he said.
The industry was not opposed to testing and would do whatever was needed.
"But we would like a little more respect and recognition...this will impact a lot of people," he said.
VFF Pastoral Group president Leonard Vallance said the increases were a good first step, but abattoirs needed more surety.
"There needs to be risk-based assessment for abattoirs to ensure forward-purchased livestock could be processed and forward-sold product could be delivered," Mr Vallance said.
He said a risk-based assessment, rather than survaillance testing, would prevent a whole facility being shut down because of one positive test result.
Season and herd rebuilding a factor
Greenham Group general manager Tom Maguire said that while COVID-19 had been a constraint, a bigger constraint was the current shortage of cattle.
Mr Maguire said operations were currently more impacted by shortages of cattle coming out of winter that was added to a herd rebuilding phase after drought.
"The rebuilding phase is very positive for the future, but it is constraining numbers," he said.
Because of that, the previous workplace limit of 67pc of peak production was not the most important constraint - "it's much more seasonal than COVID-19 policy related", he said.
The lifting of restrictions was important for the industry as a whole as cattle and lamb numbers in particular increased into spring.
Mr Maguire said prior to the easing there were real concerns for livestock producers about kill space availability at a time when they were finally having a good season.
He said Meat & Livestock Australia was predicting a slaughter rate of 6.8 million and a herd at historical lows.
There would be severely constrained supply over the next two years during that rebuilding phase.
He said the meat processing industry had changed dramatically - "we now have a new normal".
Many of the new measures such as temperature monitoring were "here to stay", but some other limits could be lifted.
"We are going to see healthier workplaces as a result, some of these measures are good," he said.
He said Greenhams would gradually increase its production as cattle became more available in spring.
He said Greenhams was growing its business in Gippsland.
There were a lot of good quality cattle in Gippsland and the expansion of the Moe plant would provide producers with an outlet.
"COVID-19 has slowed that, but we expect to be able to process more of those cattle in October, November as cattle become more available," he said.
Mr Maguire said the COVID-19 capacity restrictions had adversely affected the company's ability to train staff.