Cheshire Farm Ice Cream fined after worker’s finger was severed

A well-known ice cream maker in Cheshire has been fined for safety failings after a worker’s finger was cut off by a fruit feeder machine.

Tattenhall Dairy Products Ltd, which operates at Cheshire Farm Ice Cream, was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive after the incident at Drumlan Hall Farm in August 2013.

A 60-year-old employee, from Tattenhall, who does not want to be named, had been asked to clean the fruit feeder so it was ready for the next batch of ice cream.

She thought the machine was switched off and tried to remove pieces of cookies at the back with her left index finger when it was caught by rotating blades.

Her finger was severed below the second knuckle.

Chester Magistrates was told employees needed to clean the machine up to three times every day.

They did this by removing the chute which fed in the fruit, but this meant dangerous moving parts became exposed.

An HSE investigation found employees had been told to switch off the machine when they cleaned it, but no other measures were in place to make sure they were not put in danger.

This meant there was a high risk of them being injured if they simply forgot to check, due to human error.

The company has since installed an interlocking device on the machine, which means power is automatically cut when the chute is removed.

Tattenhall Dairy Products Ltd, of Newton Lane, was fined £7,500 and ordered to pay £11,287.22 in prosecution costs after pleading guilty to single breaches of the Provision and Use of Equipment Regulations 1998 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.

After the hearing, HSE Inspector Lorna Sherlock said: “The fruit feeder needed to be cleaned several times every day so it was almost inevitable an employee would forget to check it was switched off on one occasion.

“Tattenhall Dairy Products should have had suitable guarding or, as a minimum, a robust safe system of work in place to make sure no one was injured but there was none.

“A worker lost her index finger as a result.

“It would have been relatively easy to fit a device to the machine which automatically cut the power when the chute was removed. However, the company waited until after the incident before making this vital safety improvement.”

We contacted Cheshire Farm Ice Cream today but bosses there declined to comment.

(pic by Alan Murray-Rust under creative commons licence)