**4. Discussion**

The results provide significant insights into SA Food and Beverage Manufacturing sector alignment with current global trends on COVID-19. The initial reliability tests indicate strong reliability of data. The data indicates a very strong alignment to most categories of COVID-19 responses as extracted from global literature. Essentially, SA FoodBev companies have responded in alignment to global literature trends in most areas, with some exceptions in HR and climate change.

Firstly, and most importantly, on the issue of COVID-19's impact, in the SA context, the analysis indicates a significant number of companies (12 of 106) would likely close with 65% of all companies predicting some future impact of COVID-19, aligning strongly with literature [8,36]. Companies need to structure finances to survive, access government grants, and other government incentives.

COVID-19 has a significant impact on operation, including supply chain. Although around 80% of the companies source and distribute in SA, 50% of those that source out of SA are seeking local sourcing due to supply chain interruptions. Centrally coordinated, digital, supply chain networks are a new global priority [21,23,26,30] and SA companies agree about making digital supply chain skills a priority. SA companies prioritize adjustments in marketing strategies/digital marketing, and upskilling staff and emergency response teams as the top three resource-based mitigations aligning to significant evidence in literature [15,20,27,33,34]. SA companies are not focusing on an elastic workforce to mitigate resources constraints; this is in contrast to global considerations [33,34]. SA companies, most especially medium enterprises, seek technology as a solution with the link between technology and climate change not a fundamental. Specific to operations, the key resources and mitigation actions include social distancing, communication, and facilities reconfiguration. This is in support of the health and safety training required.

Skills infrastructure [16,30] extends beyond the training cycle but extends into the operational space. The cross thematic analysis of all results indicates small and medium enterprises are most significantly impacted (70% of all businesses closing down are small). Small businesses also forecast the highest future impact of COVID-19; this is as per literature [15,36] and anticipated government response. The particular impact on the meat industry is extracted in this study as per literature [6]. An additional and distinct new challenge reflected in the data is that small businesses experience significant additional administration bottlenecks; in the SA context, this seems to be due to the access of government support.

The cross functional analysis is based on various international best practices, as extracted. The first analysis relates to the skills required and delivery mechanisms, a Cronbach Alpha of 0.76 is calculated indicating strong reliability of all skills related questions. As per literature, 4IR skills is a priority and the adoption of 4IR tools to train is an expedited practice under COVID-19. A detailed analysis of the results indicates, in particular, skills required are digital training skills, online curriculum development, and assessment skills [37,38]. The support for setup of Virtual Reality (VR) simulators would provide for the plans to migrate to mixed methods. Infrastructure support is identified through literature [16] and confirmed in this study. Latchem [38] indicates a significant shift to mixed methods of skills development and the data extracted via this study strongly indicates the same with 83% of companies having already adopted or planning mixed methods skills delivery. Asynchronous learning is referenced in literature [37], and the cross functional results is in full agreement. The skills to optimize businesses to survive are essential. Foodbev company's sustainability is skills-based and the Foodbev SETA is most interested in the skills to focus on developing in order to achieve post COVID-19 sustainability.

An analysis of mitigation action provides for a Cronbach Alpha of 0.714, indicating reliability between the various questions asked. SA companies are responding in alignment with international companies with regards to resources-based mitigation, adjusting marketing strategies, upskilling

staff, emergency response teams, and new health and safety protocols. Operations-based mitigation include reconfiguration of facilities to mitigate the COVID-19 spread, increased communication, and transparency and social distancing at work as key actions.
