Lantmännen

In our hands and kitchens, Lantmännen’s specialty bakery products offer that delicious, mouth-watering aroma of freshly-baked bread with a delicate crackling crust. In the workshops where they are produced, the flour dust and noise are risks that need to be managed. To ensure effective protection of their workers’ health and wellbeing, Lantmännen Unibake Brussels relies on Mensura’s expertise.

For some years, the Lantmännen site at Ganshoren (Brussels) has been relying on Mensura to help reduce the number of risks associated with its operations. Mensura’s assistance comes in two forms: the weekly presence of a health and safety engineer; and access to all the experts who can be of service to the company in matters of health and wellbeing at work – medical officers, toxicologists and industrial hygienists, ergonomists, psychologists and so on.

Like all bakery production sites, the Ganshoren site presents a diverse range of risks, including respiratory risks due to handling flour, and the risk of injury from the numerous machines that knead, cut, bake, wrap, etc. Furthermore, there are risks involved with working in a cold zone, such as the packaging zone for frozen products.

To tackle these risks, Lantmännen has implemented a range of measures with the help of Mensura. To start with, regular external inspections are now carried out of the equipment and operations on site thanks to the presence of a Mensura safety expert one day a week.
 

Since he started working at the site 6 years ago, engineer and prevention adviser Fabrizio has performed conformity analyses for all the equipment, and a detailed risk analysis for each of the 21 roles at the company. His recommendations have resulted in a global health and safety plan that lies at the base of the prevention and protection provisions in the company’s annual business plan.

In particular, this plan has led to additional collective protection systems being set up, such as the new dust extractors that were added to the production lines at the beginning of 2017. The company also invested in personal hearing protection for all the workers exposed to excessive noise levels, based on a noise map drawn up and updated by Mensura.

The workers benefit from comprehensive medical monitoring, especially in terms of respiratory and auditory health. Finally, for the cold room teams, a medical officer and an industrial hygienist from Mensura have conducted a risk analysis and have determined the work schedules and rest periods required for any work carried out in these extreme conditions.

Once a week, the health and safety advisor carries out a health and safety inspection on site, accompanied by line managers or employee representatives. The recommendations set out in his report are systematically put into practice.

The number of occupational accidents on the site has clearly declined in recent years, but every accident is still one too many. Fabrizio believes that while the safety level of machinery and equipment has improved thanks to the technical modifications made, it is above all the behavioural change among workers that continues to make a difference.
 

“In the past, operators regularly ignored safety measures to make their lives easier. But for the last two or three years, I have noticed that the importance of safety has really been taken to heart. Our analyses and studies are helping, and both equipment and mindsets are changing.”

“Safety is now on everyone’s mind”, concludes Steven De Wit, HR Director at Lantmännen Unibake. “We spend more time discussing it and colleagues are more aware of it. If an accident should happen despite all precautions, then the cause of the accident will be analysed openly. It is a way of learning and raising awareness.”

Trust in the expertise of the team at Mensura. Find out what we can do for your business. Questions? Give us a call on +32 2 549 71 00.