Pet food firm fined £30k for offal explosion

A PET food manufacturer in Penrith has been ordered to pay close to £30,000 after workers were seriously injured in an explosion.

Alba Proteins (Penrith) has been prosecuted by the Health abd Safety Executive following the incident, which involved threer staff at its Wildriggs plant on Greystoke Road in Penrith.

The company was fined the maximum £20,000 and ordered to pay costs of £9,271 at North Cumbria Magistrates’ Court.

The court heard that workers were trying to clear a blockage in the industrial cooker in  August 2007, when large volumes of steam and offal exploded through the inspection hatches.

One employee jumped over the handrail on the platform, hitting his head on the concrete, fracturing his left wrist and suffering burns to his left elbow. Another worker ran down the steps and suffered burns to his left arm, left ear and the back of his neck.

A cleaner who had been asked to help clear the blockage did not move from his position by the cooker and his head, face and chest were badly burned.

Steven Smith, head of operations for HSE in the North West, said: “These three men were seriously injured because Alba Proteins didn’t have basic safety procedures in place for dealing with blockages, despite there being three similar blockages in the past.

“The offal cooker regularly reached temperatures up to 120 degrees Celsius and could become extremely dangerous if it was not handled properly. But workers used trial and error to clear blockages and, in this instance, decided to use both water and oil. This caused the contents to explode as the water turned to steam.

“Alba Proteins should have carried out a formal risk assessment so that it was able to offer employees guidance on how to deal with blockages safely. Instead, no training was provided and workers were put in danger as a result.”