Inside food & drink manufacturing
Workers employed by food manufacturers are nearly twice as likely to suffer a major injury in the workplace compared with their colleagues in other sectors of the manufacturing industry, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has revealed.
The first evidence emerged this week of how supermarket price wars were helping to force food prices down. Food prices were 0.5% lower in the first two weeks of this month compared with the previous month, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC).
Software systems used by many UK food manufacturers are 10 years behind those of their European competitors and need to be upgraded urgently, a software supplier has claimed.
A Norfolk chicken processing firm, Crown Chicken, has been fined £3,500 after one of its employees broke his back after falling from a ladder.
Maple Leaf Bakery is to close its factory in the West Midlands but 236 jobs could be saved after the firm announced that it had received enquiries from a number of interested parties.
A blaze at Broadland Hams’ food factory in Norwich needed 70 fire-fighters and more than 14 fire engines and appliances to bring it under control.