FACTS

1. Knives, graters and other sharp kitchen tools can cause injuries.
2. Lifting, carrying, pushing or pulling heavy loads can put workers at risk of serious injury.
3. When a person reaches for items above shoulder height, their back becomes arched and their arms act as long levers. This makes the load difficult to control and significantly increases the risk of injury. 
4. When someone falls as a result of a slip or trip, the injury can range from minor (bruises and scrapes) to more serious, including broken bones or head trauma. How bad the injury is will depend on the circumstances.
5. A common source of burns, scalds and heat stress are hot cooking surfaces, boiling liquids and high temperature levels at work.
6. Breathing in large amounts of flour dust is a risk to workers health.

STATS

• According to B.L.S., the leading types of injuries in manufacturing are muscular sprains, strains and tears. These injuries caused a median number of 10 D.A.F.W. in 2017. In bread and bakery manufacturing plants, the most common D.A.F.W. injuries involve employee’s back and hands. In 2017, the B.L.S. recorded 790 back injuries and 500 hand injuries in bakeries. These are also the most common pain-points in snack food operations.
• Each year, as many as 600 million people globally — almost 1 in 10 — fall ill after consuming food contaminated by bacteria, viruses, parasites, toxins and chemicals, according to W.H.O. Likewise, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (C.D.C.) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services stated that foodborne diseases are an important public health burden in the United States with an estimated 1 in 6 Americans (or 48 million people) getting sick every year. Of those, 128,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 die. According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest (C.S.P.I.), a consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, bakery products were associated with 142 disease outbreaks and 2,822 illnesses.
• Foodborne illnesses are caused by 31 known pathogens and unspecified agents. Many of these pathogens are tracked by public health systems that follow diseases and outbreaks. Unspecified agents are those with insufficient data to estimate agent-specific burden; known agents not yet identified as causing foodborne illness; microbes, chemicals or other substances known to be in food whose ability to cause illness is unproven; and agents not yet identified.