Health and safety in food and beverage manufacturing.
Processing lines, packaging machinery, forklifts, chemicals and shift work put a high concentration of machinery and traffic risk in one building, usually running around the clock. QHSE works with food and beverage manufacturers on the risks that can kill or maim, and on the systems that keep them controlled on every shift.
What matters here
A food plant is a machinery workplace first. Conveyors, fillers, slicers, mixers, palletisers and wrappers all have moving parts, and the pressure to keep the line running means guards get bypassed and interlocks get defeated unless the design and the culture both resist it. Add forklifts and pallet trucks sharing floor space with people, cleaning chemicals, hot water and steam, and the fatigue that comes with shift patterns, and the critical risks are clear enough. The question is whether they are being controlled at two in the morning as well as at ten in the morning.
The sector also carries expectations from outside the business. Customers and retailers audit their suppliers, insurers and ACC look at injury performance, and from 1 April 2027 the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Act asks every PCBU to know what its critical risks are and to show that the controls for them are in place and working. A good machine guarding assessment and a clear critical risk register go a long way towards all of that.
Rob Feasey, principal of QHSE, is a Certified Machinery Safety Expert and has spent most of his career in industries where plant and machinery are the main risk. The work is done on the floor, across shifts, with the operators and the maintenance team.
Critical risks in this sector
What QHSE does here
- Machine safety assessment and guarding review for processing and packaging plant against AS/NZS 4024 and WorkSafe guidance, with photographs, risk levels and clear actions for the maintenance team.
- Lockout and isolation procedures for cleaning and maintenance, and advice on specifying new plant so hazards are designed out before the machine arrives.
- SafePlus assessments run across all shifts, so the night crew is heard as well as the day, with deep dives on machinery, traffic and shift work.
- ACC AEP audits and readiness reviews for manufacturers in the Accredited Employer Programme.
- Critical risk identification and controls assurance: which risks could kill or maim, what the controls are, and whether they are in place and working.
- Electrical safety, including whether the in-service testing of portable equipment is doing what the organisation thinks it is.
- Root cause analysis training for production and maintenance teams, so investigations find the causes rather than the nearest operator.
- Officer due diligence support for owners, directors and site managers, and readiness for the 2027 Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA) changes.
Who it suits
Food and beverage manufacturers of any size, from a single-site processor to a multi-site group, their site managers and health and safety leads, and owners and directors who want to know that the machinery risk is under control.
Discuss your organisationFrom first call to close-out
Talk
A conversation about the organisation, its sites, its people and what is worrying it.
Scope
A written scope and a fixed fee wherever possible, with the critical risks or the system elements to be looked at agreed up front.
Look
Time on site with the people doing the work, looking at how it is really done rather than how the paperwork says it is done.
Report
A written report with evidence, findings and prioritised recommendations, presented in person to the leadership team.
Follow through
Help closing the gaps where the organisation wants it, or a plan it runs itself, with QHSE available by phone either way.
Describe the plant.
Get in touch and describe the organisation.