Food Company Hit with $55,000 Fine for Lockout Violation

At a food processing company, a worker was using a machine to process ground meat into patties. The machine has a hopper into which meat is placed and gravity-fed down to the spiral feed auger at the bottom of the hopper, where there’s a rotor and form plate. The rotor has six blades that cut meat into smaller portions. The worker noticed that not all of the meat had been processed. He reached inside the hopper, which was still running and not locked out, and pushed down the remaining meat. He was injured by one of the sharp steel blades. As a result, the company was fined $55,000 for failing to lock out the machine before the worker addressed the issue [Sunwest Food Processors Ltd., Govt. News Release, May 1, 2017].