With over 4,000 craft breweries now operating in the US, the craft brewing industry has a lot of new brewery owners. The allure of owning your own business is a powerful idea, but along with the joys of creating a business and selling your own beer, there are a lot of things that need to be addressed; safety should be first and foremost. Safety must come first to protect yourself, your employees, and your customers. There are many ways to get injured in the brewery but here are a few:
- Hot water/wort
- Electricity
- Ladders/slip and falls
- CO2
- Broken glass
- Forklifts
- Cleaning chemical exposure
Reducing the chances of being injured on the job requires knowing the risks and taking the proper steps to avoid problems. For example, are the employees wearing their PPE at all times? Does your brewery have a culture of safety in place? Are your Safety Data Sheets up-to-date? Are the employees getting trained and having regularly scheduled safety meetings?
I’ve attached pictures of the chemical safety meeting we did for Breckenridge on Friday, January 22nd, 2015. We reviewed the 16 sections of Globally Harmonized Safety Data Sheets and then discussed chemical classifications, their inherent hazards, and conditions to avoid. It was an excellent safety meeting!
Cheers!
