Training begins Wednesday for more than 2,000 employees at the XL Foods plant in Brooks, news many of the workers had been waiting to hear after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency closed the plant September 27th.

Union officials are optimistic; President Doug O’Halloran says new management company, JBS, is planning for more training than XL Foods had accomplished in years.

The facility, which was ground zero for the nation’s largest meat recall, was given its operating license back Tuesday.

Federal inspectors say there will be a “progressive resumption” of slaughter and meat processing, adding the plant won’t immediately return to previous production levels.

An increase in testing protocols and enhanced scrutiny over products will be used until the company’s performance can dictate otherwise.

Meantime, politicians are standing by Canadian Beef and any sort of ‘black eye’ the industry incurred.

Federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz believes the damage to its reputation will be minimal, adding that beef consumption is actually on the rise in Canada.

“On the international stage some countries didn’t even blink,” he says. “Certain ones said those five production dates we don’t want on our store shelves, we understand that and we certainly made arrangements to get that product back.”

Ritz says he’s been working with his U.S. counterparts to try and restore access to American markets for products from XL Foods.

“We’re working on that, that’s based on science, based on the plant producing quality product.  The U.S. was seized with a recall as were we, they’ve been assessing illnesses in the US as well,” he explains. “Not one has been traced back to the XL facility, that’s good news for us when it comes to asking them to re-open that border.”

The Public Health Agency of Canada has confirmed sixteen cases of the same strain of E. coli were the same as that found inside the Alberta facility.

According to the Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet Project, global meat production rose to 297-million tonnes in 2011, an increase of 0.8 per cent over 2010 levels.

The group is projecting it will reach 302-million tonnes by the end of this year.

Since 1995, meat consumption has also increased, 15 per cent overall.