"We've got a lot of business continuity plans and we are continuously testing the different scenarios throughout the year to make sure we're prepared. A pandemic happened to be one of those scenarios we had - that's been in place for a number of years.
"Since the first lockdown we've adjusted them a lot - we are flexible in how we need to respond. While last time all of our vulnerable workers were stood down,, this time we've taken a pragmatic approach, partly because we are going into processing, we need as many hands on deck as we can get, but also because we understand the risks and necessary controls a lot better now.
"We're encouraging staff to stay away if they're showing any symptoms at all and we have to cover for them.
"Our warehouse has three months storage capacity. It's about half full at the moment, but we are still shipping out product. We use a lot of domestic freight containers to go from Pahiatua to a port store in Auckland.
"We have an arrangement with Coda (a freight business) - we utilise the rail network a lot better. The containers are brought down from Auckland full of food for Foodstuffs. We backfill them with milk powder headed for Auckland. We have moved to 100 per cent domestic freight to our Auckland store.
"Operating at level 3 we've been doing a lot of precautionary work all the way through: temperature testing all our staff every day - given a high temperature is one of the key symptoms of Covid-19.
"Thankfully, we haven't had too many high ones - largely we've been encouraging people to stay away if they have any symptoms. We've got the processes in place to maintain that.
"Extra sanitisation is being used, between two 12-hour shifts seven days a week. All equipment is sanitised, all touch points that staff have used in their 12-hours such as keyboards and cafe areas, a lot of extra cleaning and sanitisation is required. We want our Fonterra sites to be the last place that any of our staff could catch Covid-19.
"Extra PPE is needed if we can't maintain that two-metre social distancing for large periods of time. There is an expectation to be wearing masks, gloves and glasses.
"The busiest time is the flush, which is in the last week of October and the first week of November. As we head into that all plants are ramping up. We've got all plants operational at Pahiatua now, putting out 3.5 million litres of milk per day. The number of staff involved at Pahiatua is 237 including drivers.
"Pahiatua is attracting a lot of people to live there. Some tanker drivers from other parts of New Zealand are transferring there. Moving from Hamilton or Christchurch, it gets to free-up a lot of capital with the cheaper housing prices.
"Pahiatua has a good future and Fonterra is committed to that for the long term. We spent $260 million only five years ago. What we've got now in Pahiatua enables us to take all the milk east of the Tararua/Ruahine Ranges.
"We've beefed-up our recruitment in case Covid-19 hits our sites. We have a few more temporary workers than we would normally have for seasonal staff.
"We can't just drag someone off the street and expect them to run a plant. We've got a few more staff on short-term contracts to be able to train-up in case Covid happens. If it happened at one of our major sites in the peak, it could seriously affect our ability to process.
"The two key things for our business continuity plan are, first and foremost, keeping people safe, and second - being able to process all the milk that's being drawn out of a cow every day.
"Fonterra's main focus is ensuring all the milk is collected off the farm and processed, even during a pandemic. We understand how much work the farmers put into producing it and we want to make the most money we can out of it for them," Graham said.
Fonterra has a national inventory of masks, gloves and sanitisers and temperature-testing devices to combat Covid-19. Some staff are working from home with online meetings taking place.
