Safety Tour Checklist for Food Manufacturing

Below is the walk-round we ship as the General Workplace Safety Tour template. Copy it, print it, adapt it — it is more useful in your hands than behind an email form. The only thing that matters is that what you find gets fixed and someone checks it stayed fixed.

How often to run one

Rotating who does the tour matters more than most sites expect. The same person walking the same route stops seeing the same problems after about the third month.

The 20-point walk-round

1. Traffic routes and pedestrian segregation. Walk the route a forklift takes. Are crossings marked, mirrors clean, one-way systems observed in practice rather than on the drawing?
2. Floors, spillages and housekeeping. Slips and trips remain the single largest cause of reported workplace injury in Great Britain. Look for standing water, worn matting, trailing leads and blocked walkways.
3. Machinery guarding. Guards present, secure, and not defeated. Ask an operator how they clear a blockage — the answer tells you more than the guard does.
4. Isolation and lock-off. Is there a lock-off procedure for maintenance, and are the padlocks actually in the cabinet rather than in a drawer somewhere?
5. Fire exits and escape routes. Unobstructed, unlocked, clearly signed, and leading somewhere safe. Check the furthest point from an exit, not the one by the office.
6. Fire-fighting equipment. Extinguishers in place, unobstructed, in date, with the right type for the risk near it.
7. Emergency lighting and alarms. Test records current. Ask when the last evacuation drill was and how long it took.
8. Electrical safety. Damaged leads, overloaded sockets, missing covers, PAT status where it applies.
9. Work at height. Ladders in good condition and used appropriately, edge protection where needed, nobody standing on a pallet to reach something.
10. Manual handling in practice. Watch an actual lift. Are the aids provided being used, or parked in a corner because they slow the job down?
11. COSHH and chemical storage. Containers labelled, decanted chemicals identified, safety data sheets accessible, incompatible substances separated.
12. Local exhaust ventilation. LEV running where required and within its statutory examination date.
13. PPE provision and use. Provided free, correct type, in good condition — and worn. PPE sitting in a locker is a finding.
14. Noise and vibration. Hearing protection zones marked and observed; high-vibration tools on a rotation or exposure limit.
15. Welfare facilities. Toilets, washing, drinking water, rest and changing facilities clean, stocked and sufficient for the headcount on shift.
16. Lighting and temperature. Adequate for the task, particularly at inspection points, stairs and external areas in winter.
17. Storage and racking. Racking undamaged and within load limits, nothing stacked unstably or blocking sprinkler clearance.
18. Contractors on site. Signed in, inducted, working to a permit where required, and supervised by someone named.
19. First aid and incident reporting. First aiders on shift and known, kits stocked, accident book available and being used.
20. Signage and information. Health and safety law poster displayed, hazard signage current and relevant rather than decorative.

The part that decides whether it was worth doing

A tour that produces a list and no closure is a record that you knew about a hazard and left it. That is a worse position than not having looked, and it is exactly what an inspector or a claimant’s solicitor will read it as.

Whatever you use to run the tour, make sure each finding gets four things:

• A named owner — not a department.
• A due date proportionate to the risk, not a default 30 days for everything.
• A root cause where it is a repeat. If the guard is defeated again, the cause is not the operator.
• A verification by someone other than the person who fixed it.

That last one is the step nearly every spreadsheet skips, and it is the one that turns a list of observations into a system you can stand behind.

Frequently asked questions