AUSTRALIA (From the Financial Review) -- Australia's richest man, Anthony Pratt, has bunkered down in his family's Melbourne mansion where he is working to ramp up production across his Visy box empire to meet surging demand fueled by panic grocery buying across the country.

Visy Industries' 5,000-strong Australian employees are working at capacity to produce boxes that encase 70 per cent of the nation's food and groceries.

Mr Pratt said his facilities were hiring more staff to cope with surging demand. Visy has had to radically adapt. Staff are getting temperatures checked daily, social distancing is in place and office staff are working split shifts to minimise contact.

"We are redoubling our efforts to protect our workers," Mr Pratt said, stressing the health and safety of employees was his number one priority.

"We are expanding. A lot of our factories are putting on more people and more shifts and we are gearing up quite substantially for that (increased demand). "

Mr Pratt, who has postponed his 60th birthday celebrations planned for next month, is anticipating a "massive transition" from bricks and mortar retailing to online shopping, which will trigger demand for more of his company's cardboard boxes.

"I believe that there will be further huge growth in online retail as people avoid going to the stores more. Whether it's ordering electronics or groceries online from Amazon, Woolworths and Coles, or ordering takeaway food from restaurants. Almost everything you order online comes to your home in either a box or repulpable padded envelopes.

"This [pandemic] will lead to a permanent shift away from regular retail to online retail to some extent."

The Financial Review newspaper recently assessed Mr Pratt and his family's net wealth at $17 billion, an increase of $1.43 billion compared to a year ago. But high iron ore prices has lifted the fortunes of his friend, Gina Rinehart, who would be the nation's richest person if the Rich List was published last week.

Despite the surging demand for boxes, and surging value of the US dollars that make up half his empire's revenue, Mr Pratt is cutting costs and is urging businesses to focus on cash flow and cut back where they can.

"We are focusing on a number of things. The main thing is keeping people healthy. That's [the] number one thing in our company. The other one is managing the business for cash, we are focusing very strongly on cash flow. We are cutting travel, increasing video conferencing and servicing our existing customers very strongly so they don't run out of stock," Mr Pratt said.

He said he was working with his biggest customers to try and find ways to make them more money. He encouraged other businesses to do the same.

For example, Visy has developed a styrene-free box that allows butchers to send product in temperature controlled paper products. It has made resealable boxes so consumers can send back unwanted items more easily.

Visy is also cutting dividends it pays to its shareholders, who include his mother Jeanne. In 2018, two Visy companies paid a combined $265 million in dividends.

"We are cutting dividends and cutting head office costs," Mr Pratt said in response to questions about how Visy was managing the crisis.

"It is incumbent upon all of us to reinvest our money into job creating machinery but also take a very responsible approach. Nobody knows the future and we don't take anything for granted.

"I always tell my kids we are only two years away from bankruptcy."