Food Manufacturer Fined $80,000 After Worker Injured in Peterborough
December 15, 2022
Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development
Convicted: Pepsico Canada ULC, 745 Thurlow Street, Suite 2400, Vancouver, British Columbia
Location of Workplace: A breakfast cereal and granola bar manufacturing facility at 34 Hunter Street in Peterborough, Ontario
Description of Offence: A worker suffered a critical injury from a conveyor belt. Pepsico Canada ULC failed, as an employer, to ensure the conveyor belt was guarded to prevent access to an in-running nip hazard, as required by the Regulation for Industrial Establishments.
Date of Offence: September 30, 2020
Date of Conviction: December 5, 2022
Penalty Imposed:
- Following a guilty plea in Ontario Provincial Offences Court, Peterborough, Pepsico Canada ULC was fined $80,000 by Justice of the Peace Jason Mariasine; Crown Counsel, Alicia Gordon-Fagan.
- The court also imposed a 25 per cent victim fine surcharge as required by the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.
Background:
- On September 30, 2020, a worker at the company’s Peterborough manufacturing facility was checking moisture and sugar levels in cereal products.
- The worker noticed there was no cereal coming out of a conveyor belt that breaks cereal sheets into smaller pieces.
- The worker went down to the conveyor line and attempted to push sheets of cereal into the conveyor belt.
- The worker suffered a critical injury from an unguarded in-running nip hazard created by the conveyor belt drive roller and the supporting table.
- Section 25 of the Regulation for Industrial Establishments requires that in-running nip hazards of a machine be guarded to prevent access to the pinch point.
- Pepsico Canada ULC contravened Section 25(1)(c) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act by failing, as an employer, to ensure that the measures and procedures required by Section 25 of Ontario Regulation 851 were carried out.