As the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to disrupt operations across the food and beverage industry, processors find themselves balancing a number of training challenges.

Surges in demand and labor shortages due to illness have led to the need for more hiring and training to get new employees up to speed. Existing employees have had to cross-train to cover employee outages or added production demands. Regulatory and food safety training has had to continue to meet government and customer requirements. And new construction, commissioning and equipment start-up has continued, because food and beverage plants are the definition of essential businesses.