Heinz fined over finger loss at Wigan baked bean factory

Date:

27 May 2011

Release No:

HSE/NW/03Heinz

Food giant Heinz has been fined £20,000 after a worker suffered serious injuries to his left hand at a baked bean factory in Wigan.

The 65-year-old worker lost his index finger, suffered severe nerve damage to two other fingers, and received deep cuts to his hand.

HJ Heinz Company Ltd, which has an annual turnover of more than £700 million, was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) following the incident at its Kitt Green plant on Spring Road in Wigan on 11 April 2008.

The machine which caused the worker's injuries

Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court heard that the employee was making a new metal part for a baked bean packaging machine when the incident happened. The worker was using emery cloth to polish the component on a metal-working machine while it was rotating, when his gloved hand was pulled in.

The court was told that Heinz should have identified safety measures for the work in advance, such as providing an alternative way to polish the metal component so that emery cloth did not need to be used.

Heinz, which employs approximately 32,500 people around the globe, pleaded guilty to two health and safety offences after it failed to carry out a risk assessment for the work or to provide adequate training.

The company, of Hayes Park in Hayes, Middlesex, was fined £20,000 and ordered to pay £4,496.50 in prosecution costs.

Deborah Walker, the investigating inspector at HSE, said:

"This worker has suffered severe injuries to his left hand, which will affect him for the rest of his life, because Heinz didn't make sure he was working safely.

"He had been employed by Heinz for more than twenty years, but was not given any refresher training on safe working practices in that time. The company also failed to assess the risks of the work he was carrying out, and make sure suitable safety measures were in place.

"The risk of emery cloth being pulled into rotating metalworking machines is well known. Manufacturing companies should make sure employees are following the latest health and safety guidance on this issue."

HJ Heinz Company Ltd was charged with breaching Regulation 3(1)(a) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 and Regulation 9(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998.

A total of 25 workers were killed and more than 4,000 suffered major injuries in the manufacturing industry in Great Britain last year. Information on preventing injuries is available at www.hse.gov.uk/manufacturing.

Notes to editors

1. The Health and Safety Executive is Britain's national regulator for workplace health and safety. It aims to reduce work-related death, injury and ill health. It does so through research, information and advice; promoting training; new or revised regulations and codes of practice; and working with local authority partners by inspection, investigation and enforcement. www.hse.gov.uk
2. Regulation 3(1)(a) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 states: "Every employer shall make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to the health and safety of his employees to which they are exposed whilst they are at work."
3. Regulation 9(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 states: "Every employer shall ensure that all persons who use work equipment have received adequate training for purposes of health and safety, including training in the methods which may be adopted when using the work equipment, any risks which such use may entail and precautions to be taken."

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