Probable Occupational Hazards in Bakery

Baking bread can become a dangerous career. The late and great cookery writer Margaret Costa cautioned that "Beware of making that first loaf." Bakers have to pay heed to the dangers prevalent in the small and as well as large bakeries, while working in them.

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Many bakeries in India, especially bakeries in the huge unorganised segment in the country, are fraught with inherent operational hazards, which can translate into threats to the health and safety of their staff.

Many bakeries, which have hot objects like ovens, have latent potential hazards in their environments. Therefore, workers in the bakery should not only ensure that they are aware of the hazards but should also know how to tackle with them safely.

The job in bakery can be creative, enjoyable, rewarding and hazardous. A lot has been written about the other three facets of the bakery operations though the hazardous element in the bakery operations should also get its due industry attention.

In the past, an industrial bakery which was baking cakes in a gas-fired rack oven got its oven door, weighing about 175 pounds, being blown off, causing not insignificant damage around the oven in the process. Several workers suffered minor injuries which included ringing in their ears, but what is of more serious concern is that they could have been seriously injured or even would have to pay with their lives. Then the price of daily bread would have been truly inhuman!

The cause of the explosion was the sucking of the unburned gases into the baking chamber. An investigation revealed that the draft control had not been set up in a proper manner and neither the oven had undergone sufficient maintenance and servicing. Furthermore, the oven's components which include the burner mountings and heat exchanger, were overheated, cracked, and experienced deterioration.

What is more disturbing is the fact that accidents in bakeries are not aberrations. Therefore safety is an essential part of bakery management. The ideal prayer of the average bakery worker in the unorganised bakery sector in India could be: 'Give us this day our daily bread and save us from the bakery!'

Too Hot to Handle