Sausage maker cited by OSHA three years in a row

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Dive Brief:

• The Department of Labor found Dean Sausage Co.’s Atalla, Alabama, meat processing and packing facility repeatedly neglected safety standards during inspections over the past three years that exposed employees to unsafe working conditions, the agency announced earlier this month. 
• The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s latest citations on Dec. 3 include violations from a July 2024 inspection that revealed inadequate machine safety procedures, lack of employee training and missing electrical panel covers.
• Despite prior citations and penalties exceeding $109,000, similar hazards at the facility persisted, leading to an additional $103,245 in proposed penalties this year.

Dive Insight:

The small sausage company had three repeat violations in July, including failing to implement and train employees on lockout and tagout procedures or provide a written hazard communication program for handling chemicals like ammonia.

OSHA cited 2,538 lockout and tagout proedure violations in fiscal year 2023, making it the sixth most cited standard by the agency.

For its new citations, Dean Sausage was found using electric power and lighting installations unsafely and exposing employees to struck-by and caught-in hazards, electric shock and burns and hazardous chemicals, according to the agency.

In 2023, the agency found seven repeat violations and two serious ones during an inspection, eventually levying $116,153 in penalties against the company. 

As of the 2023 citation, Dean Sausage produces sausage and frozen biscuit sandwiches products for the southern U.S. market, according to its website. The company employs 85 workers at its Attalla facility. 

Dean Sausage has 15 working days from Dec. 3 to respond to and pay the OSHA fines. The company did not immediately respond to Manufacturing Dive for comment.

The food manufacturing sector had a total of 61,400 injury and illness cases in 2023, at a rate of 3.6 cases per 100 full-time employee workers, down from 4.6 in 2022, according to a DOL Bureau of Labor Statistics report.

Dean Sausage joins other manufacturers with recent repeat violations. In September, OSHA cited Hailiang Copper Texas $253,750 in proposed penalties after two federal workplace safety investigations found dangerous working conditions at its Sealy, Texas, facility. 

In June, Wisconsin pallet manufacturer Konz Wood Products was issued $177,453 in penalties after a 57-year-old worker was fatally struck by the carriage of a lumber stacking machine. OSHA cited the company with two repeat violations for a lack of lockout and tagout procedures and failing to provide fall protection when employees worked above dangerous machinery, according to the agency press release.