Hitchen Foods (owned by Bakkavor Foods), have been fined two million pounds at Manchester Crown Court after a worker was killed when unsecured plastic bales fell on top of him.
An HSE investigation found that the company storage and racking system, along with associated systems of work (including staff training and responsibilities) fell far short of expected standards. This resulted in unsafe stacking of bales along with a failure of the company to mitigate risk arising from working in the area and when storing or moving bales. The HSE stated that these failures resulted in ‘devastating consequences’.
The company, whose customers include Waitrose, M&S, Sainsbury’s and Tesco, were also ordered to pay £33,000 court costs, on top of the £2M fine.
