As you look for contract food manufacturing in Brisbane, it is important to understand some of the most common safety hazards in the food manufacturing industry. Even with the new regulations and technological advances, employees in the food manufacturing and processing industry continue to face a lot of health risks today more than a century later. Here are some common hazards employees encounter in the food manufacturing and processing industry.

Machinery hazards

In the food manufacturing and processing industry, machines used to process, clean, and packagefood come with numerous hazards and risks. In some cases, workers may be injured in machine-related accidents. These workers face a wide range of hazards including conveyor belts with exposed or moving parts, falling objects, collapsing structures and compressed pieces of equipment. For all the hazards that come with high-technological machinery, a few hazards and risks are more common than others. They include the following.

Machine guarding

Workers should provide guards to protect employees from exposed and/or moving parts.

Tagout/lockout

Electrical equipment and machines should be properly locked out, shut down and de-energized during servicing and maintenance; when proper safety precautions are not taken, employees face increased risks of electrocution and burns.

Loud noises

While noises may seem like minor inconveniences, loud noises may increase the risk of injury by preventing proper communication between employees.

Safer food industry machinery

In the food manufacturing and processing industries, conveyors are common and visual communication can protect employees from exposed and moving parts, hot surfaces, pressurized systems and more. It is important to use standardized safety labels to keep employees safe around conveyors. Such designs comply with ANSI standards and use three signal words to communicate a hazard’s seriousness in the contract food manufacturing industry.

Threats from the release of ammonia

Employees can sustain serious injuries from exposure to harmful environments and substances. Anhydrous ammonia is a very popular refrigerant in food manufacturing and processing facilities. You will find this substance in the juice and soft drinks facilities, breweries, meat processing plants and other plants that process food. Despite this ubiquity, ammonia poses a lot of risks to employees. Ammonia is flammable, corrosive, and explosive.

Protecting employees from ammonia

Food processing and manufacturing facilities should label all pipes used to transport ammonia for a safer environment. Labelling these pipes should adhere to industry standards. The standards require plant managers and employers to label system components such as pumps, compressors, and receivers. The standards also maintain that every marker for ammonia pipe includes piping abbreviation, pipe contents, physical state, flow direction, and pressure level. Each label should indicate the pressure level and include a component identifier.

Trip, slip and fall dangers

contract food manufacturing in Brisbane plants can also have hazards such as slips, trips and fall dangers. These are among the most common causes of injury in workplaces in general and the food manufacturing industry. Given the high liquid volumes used in the processing and manufacturing of food, employees are regularly exposed to unsafe and wet surfaces. Employees can slip in puddles of water; fall as they try to access a platform, or trip over uneven surfaces.