How to Keep Food and Beverage Workers Safe In Hot Workspaces

Extremes of temperature are unavoidable in the food and beverage industry, where your employees may be working in bakeries, industrial kitchens, and other food product manufacturing plants that involve cooking or heat-processing food. It’s hard enough to keep workers cool and safe during the winter months, but if you live somewhere that’s prone to very hot or humid summers, you have an even bigger problem on your hands.

Not to mention the danger of heatwaves all over the world. In the U.S. in particular, these are getting longer and more severe year on year. Do you have a plan to cope if the temperature suddenly soars? Or if the humidity gets so bad your workers can’t function, and your product quality is under threat?

Or what if your existing climate control system fails? If the air conditioning or dehumidifiers go down? What will you do then?

In this article, we’ll look at some key ways to beat the heat and keep your whole workforce safe.

How Does the Heat Cause Havoc?

Your facility should already have clear safety regulations in place, in line with official guidance on what constitutes a too-hot working environment. OSHA states that employees have a legal requirement to ensure workplaces don’t get dangerously hot. For most offices, a temperature range of 68-76F is ideal, but OSHA points out that things can start getting dangerous at 70F if your employees do quite a physically taxing job.

So what happens when the mercury does creep up? Well, at the very least, employees will probably start to feel sleepy and sluggish, and productivity levels will drop right down. People will report that they feel uncomfortable and you’ll need to provide more comfort breaks, as well as making drinking water readily available.

As things heat up, this moves from an inconvenience to a serious danger. If you don’t find a way to cool things down, the medical risks include:

• Heat rash

In hot, humid conditions, people sweat. If they aren’t able to cool down, this can cause nasty skin conditions, including rashes and blisters.

• Heat cramps

All that sweating eventually means the person’s water and salt levels get depleted, too - causing painful muscle cramps and spasms.

• Heat syncope

If any of your workforce needs to sit or stand for long periods of time, high heat increases the risk of heat syncope. This causes sudden dizziness and fainting when they stand up or try to move.

• Heat exhaustion

Before a person gets heat stroke, they get heat exhaustion. That means you really need to look out for the symptoms, which include headaches, dizziness, nausea, fatigue, feeling weak or thirsty, heavy sweating, and becoming irritable.

• Heat stroke

This is a medical emergency. The body stops being able to cool itself effectively and the sweating mechanism may fail. The person becomes confused and uncoordinated, and if they don’t receive urgent medical attention, this can be fatal - or leave them with permanent disabilities.

Obviously, no one wants their workforce to suffer these effects. What’s more, even a relatively small hike in temperature can lead to diminished production, more sick days, or even the need to shut down your facility. That’s bad news for your bottom line.

Battling the Danger in the Food & Beverage Industry

As we’ve seen, you can’t get around working at heat in the F&B sector. You can’t perform processes like baking, frying, and boiling without high temperatures. Any equipment you use to run production lines and other mechanical operations will emit heat, too. Another danger that’s common in F&B is when employees need to work or conduct maintenance in confined spaces. That might be because they’re constrained by presses, fermentation vats, barrels, storage tanks or similar equipment, or simply because they’re working in rooms that need to be closed off for climate control purposes. Whatever the reason, working in small, enclosed areas carries its own set of risks, from limited oxygen supply, poor visibility, and slip/accident hazards, to the threat of being trapped in a small space if the area floods suddenly or toxic gases are released. While you need to have a clear plan of action for any of these outcomes, it’s important to recognize the ways in which high heat conditions exacerbate many of them. One major reason for this is that, for workers doing their jobs in confined spaces, feeling that they are overheating may well increase a sense of claustrophobia and cause them to panic. Not only does it make it harder to deal calmly with hazards. It also makes an accident more likely in the first place.

What is Comfort Cooling?

Luckily, there’s a simple solution to help you keep workers comfortable throughout the summer months: comfort cooling. This means bringing in temporary cooling equipment, such as air conditioning units, chillers, and dehumidifiers, as well as improving ventilation. You can set it up for as long as you need it, without having to invest in pricey permanent installations that will sit idle for the rest of the year.

Final thoughts: dont’t leave it too late

Every day that your facility is out of action can mean missed orders, spoiled products, and lost profits. That means you can’t afford to wait for the heat to hit before you take precautions.

Start planning now to ensure you have a backup cooling system ready to go as soon as you need it. Reach out to a temporary utilities provider who can advise on exactly what you need, so that it’s only a phone call away in a crisis. A few extra steps now will protect your productivity, and safeguard your workforce, when the mercury soars.

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