Food Processor Fined $40K for Equipment-Related Injury

Producer of batter and breaded products Sunwest Food Processors Ltd. was fined CN$55,000, or about $40,000, by a Canadian provincial court on May 1 in relation to charges stemming from a June 2016 incident where an employee was injured by a meat cutting machine at the firm’s Waterloo plant, the Ontario Ministry of Labor announced Monday.

A worker was a “former” piece of equipment used to form process meat into patties on June 1, 2016 – a machine with a gravity-fed hopper with a spiral feed auger that leads down to a rotor and form plate with six blades to cut meat – when they reached into the operational hopper to push meat into the machine and was injured by one of the blades.

The equipment was not locked out, the Ministry of Labor said. The firm pled guilty to violations of the country’s Occupational Health and Safety Act, including a measure that mandates “a part of a machine…shall only be cleaned, oiled, adjusted, repaired, or have maintenance work performed on it only when (a) motion that may endanger work is stopped.”

Sunwest told court officials on May 1 that the company has taken steps to improve workplace safety and health, including increased training efforts, hiring a health and safety officer, and briefing managers and supervisors on hazards posed by moving machine parts.

In addition to the CN$55,000 fine, the company was also ordered to pay a 25% victim fine surcharge as required under the Provincial Offences Act.

Click here for information about the PBS Toronto event, May 16-18, 2017

For more articles, news, and equipment reviews, visit our Equipment Zones