Health and Safety
ABF is committed to providing safe and healthy conditions for its employees, contractors and visitors. We try very hard to reduce injuries in every location. In 2006 ABF invested heavily in H&S improvements, mainly on segregating people from vehicles on site, the prevention of explosions, reducing injuries from manual handling of heavy and awkward loads and improving the working environment.
The following sites received external safety awards during the year:
- ABF Ingredients’ Deutsche Heferwerk site won an award from the Hamburg Safety Authority as a site with an exemplary health and safety system
- The British Sugar factories at Cantley, Newark and Wissington each received the ‘President’s Award’ from the UK’s Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents for their very high standards of safety over many years
- BSO Poland’s Ostrowite site came 3rd in a national safety competition
- The Twinings Ovo Ovaltine factory in Shanghai was awarded an ‘A Grade’ in manufacturing safety by the local authority
The following safety performance data relate to our employees.
Fatal Injuries
We are pleased to report that in 2006 there were no deaths in our factories.
Reportable Injuries
In 2006 the absolute number of reportable injuries rose by 15% to 765 and the overall reportable injury rate rose by 10%. This was due in part to the continuing acquisition of 10 factories, the expansion in the number of Primark stores and in part by higher injury rates in some companies. This increase was offset by good performances and safety improvements in other established ABF companies.
This category of injury is defined as reportable to the regulators according to the laws of the countries in which we operate. The requirements vary markedly between countries and hence are not comparable. Before 2003 we did not have any injury data for our international operations. In 2001, we disposed of a number of poorly performing businesses which, as a result, reduced the number of injuries.
In the UK there were 287 reportable injuries which, when expressed as a proportion of employees, equated to 1.6%. The injury rate for our UK manufacturing operations (i.e. excluding Primark) was 1.68%, similar to that for the UK food industry as a whole.
Since the start of this decade there has been a 40% reduction in the UK injury rate.
For all our manufacturing and retail operations the working environment and physical safety standards, for example, machinery guarding, electrical safety and control of hazardous substances, are carefully monitored and upgraded as needed using guidance published by the national regulatory authorities as the benchmark. The operating companies have continued to develop the breadth and depth of their risk-management systems, which include clear objectives and targets, effective physical controls and management procedures, routine performance monitoring and improvement action plans.
Health and Safety Prosecutions
During the 2006 reporting year one site was prosecuted for the fall of an employee from a raised platform and was fined £6,000. The graph for 2005 has been revised to include a case which had been reclassified.
