United States Food Supply Chain Workers at Risk of Injury

Workers in the United States food supply chain management are at a high risk of serious injuries that occur mainly while moving containers.

Workers tasked with moving products in the immense U.S. food system are at a high risk of serious injury, according to a new Penn State-led study, and pandemic-caused, supply-chain problems have worsened the situation, researchers suggest.

The modern food supply chain presents unique hazards to employees that result in higher rates of death and injury when compared to most other industries. Employees in food manufacturing, wholesaling, and even retailing experience relatively high numbers of occupational injuries and fatalities.

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‘Protecting the health and safety of employees in the nation’s food supply chain should be addressed with attention.’

One reason for the high hazard rates may be the reliance on a synergistic packaging system designed to load and transport food products within and between manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers.

In the modern system, food products are aggregated and transported after they have been packaged, requiring potentially dangerous machinery, equipment, and methods to accomplish those tasks.

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Materials handling and movement within and between facilities are critical to the efficient functioning of all links of the food-related supply chain, but product movement can be a source of occupational injuries.

The COVID-19 pandemic motivated researchers to undertake the research. They were curious about how the added pressure on the food supply chain was affecting workers.

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News reports in the first year of the pandemic gave the impression that our food supply chain was not keeping up with the new demands from the pandemic. It was clear most Americans had to stay home, and that changed the way that food had to be prepared, packaged, and moved.

Researchers suspected this put a lot of pressure on the workers in the food supply chain to highlight the increase in injuries during the first part of the pandemic when the food supply chain was under tremendous pressure.

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Researchers used a database maintained by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration to investigate all severe injuries in the six years from 2015 to 2020 in the food supply chain.

Their results documented 1,084 severe injuries and 47 fatalities during the six years although the researchers noted that actual figures could be twice as high. Data indicated that 2020 saw a significant increase in severe injuries as compared to previous years.

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In findings published in the Journal of Safety Research, researchers reported that fractures of the lower extremities were most prevalent, with the most frequent accident event type being transportation-related, such as pedestrian-vehicle incidents.

Large retailers that sell food along with many other products — such as Walmart, Sam’s Club, and Costco — were not included in the research.

Researchers wanted to be very narrow with our definition of a grocery store or a food retailer, and those big, multi-faceted operations are not, strictly speaking, just grocery or food retailers, because food is just a part of their overall sales.

Source-Eurekalert