Toronto baker fined $50,000 after worker hurt while cleaning dough mixer

Niche Bakers Corp. on Finch Avenue West in Toronto. Photo: Google Streetview

An Ontario bakery has been fined $50,000 after a worker was seriously injured while cleaning and industrial dough mixer.

On March 22, 2021, two workers were cleaning an industrial dough mixer, also known as a “dough chunker,” at Niche Bakers in Toronto.

The dough chunker was inside a gated and fenced zone, with the entrance controlled by safety gates/swing-out doors which, when in the opened position, would prevent the dough chunker from starting.

When workers were inside the gated zone the power was required to be off and the safety gates left open.

One worker was inside the gated zone to clean the dough chunker. A second worker was at the control panel outside the zone and, contrary to safety procedures, closed the safety gates and reset the system to cycle.

When asked by the first worker, the second worker turned on the dough chunker momentarily to rotate the uncleaned portions of machine parts into position for the first worker to clean.

As a result, the first worker was seriously injured by the rotating blades.

Section 76(a) of Ontario Regulation 851 states that where the starting of a machine may endanger the safety of a worker, control switches or other control mechanisms shall be locked out so that the machine cannot be activated.

Niche Bakers Corp. failed to ensure that the measures and procedures prescribed in the regulation were carried out at a workplace, contrary to section 25(1)(c) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

Following a guilty plea, Niche Bakers Corp. was fined $50,000. The court also imposed a 25 per cent victim fine surcharge as required by the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.