David Wood Baking has been fined more than £573k after three employees suffered serious injuries in separate incidents during 2022 at its sites in Bolton.
The own-label bakery supplier was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) following an investigation into the incidents.
Details revealed during a hearing at Manchester Magistrates’ Court on 19 December 2024 included:
- On 25 June 2022, a woman’s arm was drawn into a conveyor belt at the company’s site at Lyon Road in Kearsley, Bolton. As a result, she suffered two open fractures and permanent nerve damage in the hand, undergoing three operations and insertion of two metal plates to repair the damage.
- On 20 July 2022, a man working at the company’s site in Sidney Street, Bolton, was injured after his left arm became trapped by the lid of a mechanical mixer he was attempting a repair. Neither the supervisor or manager on call were contactable and the employee was stuck in the machine for around 90 minutes, eventually being freed by the fire brigade. He suffered an open fracture to the arm as well as other fractures and nerve damage in the forearm.
- On 4 December 2022, also at the Kearsley site, a woman had a finger severed after her hand became entangled in an unguarded drive belt on a machine that she was operating. She too was left with ongoing nerve damage to the hand.
The court also heard that David Wood Baking had previously been guilty of poor machinery guarding practice with a fine of £858k levied following an incident in 2021, where a 26-year-old employee had to have his right arm amputated after it became entangled in an industrial food mixer at the firm’s site in Sheerness, Kent.
Speaking about the three incidents in 2022, HSE inspector Jennifer French said: “This company failed to keep employees safe from risks posed by food manufacturing machinery. The training was inadequate and the monitoring insufficient to rectify issues.
“It is important for industries to understand the potential dangers arising from the use of, or working near, dangerous machinery,” she added.
David Wood Baking pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 11(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998, and was fined £573,344 and ordered to pay £12,888 in costs.
The company has yet to respond to a request for comments.
Founded in 2008 by David and Karen Wood, the manufacturer secured a substantial credit facility last May to help it bounce back from a September 2023 fire which destroyed its bakery site in Netherton, Dudley. The fire was later ruled accidental by West Midlands Fire Service.
David Wood Baking also operates seven other sites including two in Bolton, and one each in Dudley, Newport, Scarborough, Sheerness, Spalding, and Workington in Cumbria, from which it supplies a range of own-label breads, ready meals, and sweet and savoury products to UK supermarkets and high street food retailers. Its head office is in Leeds.
Two other bakery businesses have plead guilty to health and safety breaches in recent months and received hefty fines. Samworth Brothers was fined £1.28m after an employee was killed by a delivery lorry at its Ginsters pasty factory in Cornwall, and Jacksons Bakery paid out £366k after an employee lost a finger in machinery at its Corby site in Northamptonshire.
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