Food manufacture - Beer, spirit and soft drink manufacture

Injury rate comparisons

Injury incidence rates (ie injuries per 100,000 workers per year) averaged for the three years 2005/06-2007/08 are as follows:

Manual handling and lifting - especially barrels, casks and crates
Slips and trips - half the injuries are from slips (90% on wet floors) and half from trips
Being struck by falling objects, eg barrels, boxes, equipment
Falls from height - off ladders, work platforms, stairs and from vehicles
Machinery - mainly conveyors but also bottling machines, packaging machines, palletisers etc
Exposure to harmful substances - cleaning chemicals, hot liquids
Transport - especially lift trucks

Musculoskeletal injury from heavy manual handling, eg of casks, kegs, crates, sacks and items of plant
Work-related upper limb disorders (WRULDs) from repetitive handling, eg in bottling halls
Noise induced hearing loss from noisy plant, eg casking/kegging, decrating/washing, bottling, canning and packaging machinery
Occupational lung disease from exposure to grain and malt dust
Occupational lung disease and nasal cancer from exposure to hardwood dust in coopperages

Manual handling in the brewing industry - Guidance Note
Brewers and Licensed Retailers Association (now British Beer & Pub Association), Market Towers, 1 Nine Elms Lane, London SW8 5NQ
A wide range of whisky manufacture health and safety publications, videos and interactive training packages are available from:
The Scotch Whisky Association
20 Atholl Crescent
Edinburgh EH3 8HF