News

A worker's hand crushed in a food processing machinery

The employee had his hand crushed at Bakkavör’s Bourne Salads factory whilst assisting colleagues in clearing a blockage in a cabbage washing line.

The employee reached into the screw conveyor, which is used to shred the cabbage, to try to remove several cabbages blocking the machine.

Although the machine had a guard to prevent anyone reaching the screw conveyor, it had been disabled to allow the machine to run without it. Unfortunately, the machine had not been properly isolated and when the blockage was cleared, it started up again crushing the man’s hand.

Bakkavör Foods Ltd, which operates three subsidiaries in the UK, was fined £3000 and ordered to pay full costs of £2000 at Grantham Magistrates’ Court after pleading guilty to breaching regulation 11(3) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998.

• Worker loses lower leg after paving machine crush 30/07/2010
• A worker’s finger crushed by 40 tonne press 22/03/2010
• A worker injured while clearing a jam in the production line 03/03/2010
• A worker’s hand crushed in a food processing machinery 25/02/2010
• A worker left paralysed after an accident at Shell’s Stanlow oil refinery 06/01/2010
• Company fined £75,000 after radioactive contamination 10/12/2009
• Employee’s arm amputated in conveyor belt accident 13/11/2009
• Three workers injured in explosion in pet food company 13/11/2009
• Worker suffered a fractured wrist at a packaging firm 08/11/2009
• Lancashire workers get 11,000-volt electric shock 23/10/2009