The Ministry of Agriculture (MAF) is distributing a DVD and posters and meat plants to help staff recognise, and respond to, any outbreak of foot and mouth disease in stock.
New Zealand has never had an outbreak of the highly contagious and devastating disease that affects cloven hooved animals such as sheep, cattle, pigs, goats, deer, and alpacas.
This means the country's 24,000 meat processing workers have to be on the alert for a disease they have never seen.
MAF's New Zealand standards director, Dr Mary Western, says the 11 minute DVDs are being distributed as part of a response plan that all processing companies are legally required to have in place and review annually.
