The growing appeal of A-SAFE products within the food and beverage industry has been highlighted by a recent installation at U.S beverage experts, Eight O’Clock Coffee.
The four day warehouse installation in Hyattsville, MD (ten miles outside Washington, DC) looked to address maintenance costs on internal structures caused by forklift truck impacts, as well as providing employees, pedestrians and vehicle drivers with an all-round safer working environment.
Eight O’Clock Coffee is an original U.S. brand, established since the mid-nineteenth century and is well-known in American households. It is a subsidiary of Tata Global Beverages Ltd, which include Tetley Tea, Good Earth Teas, JEMČA and Tata Tea – the biggest-selling tea brand in India – on their roster.
A number of A-SAFE products were used on the installation, including Pedestrian Barriers with gates, Column Protectors, Rack Guards, Kerb Barriers, Traffic Barrier Plus and Dock Rollers.
As with all A-SAFE installations, traffic management is a key concern. Eight O’Clock Coffee were looking to prevent employees from straying into areas where forklift truck traffic was active. A-SAFE used Pedestrian Barriers to reduce vehicle/pedestrian crossover points and clearly segregate vehicle routes from pedestrian walkways. Using the barriers’ innovative, modular design allowed green gates to be fitted into the walkways at convenient safe crossing points (see picture).
Elsewhere in the warehouse internal structures needed to be protected from vehicle impacts. Over time, solidity of key structures can become compromised by numerous small collisions with workplace machinery and it is wise to protect these assets – ideally immediately – but at least before their structural integrity is permanently damaged.
A-SAFE Column Protectors neatly protect vital structures from these vehicle impacts; first by providing an absorbent barrier that dissipates collision forces, but also through being fixed sufficiently away from the actual structure to avoid any impact with it at all (see picture). Add this to the high-visibility effectiveness of all A-SAFE products and Eight O’Clock Coffee had installed the world-class safety features they were looking for – preventative, innovative and protective all in one.
Tanya Bryan, Engineering Manager, said: “I went with A-SAFE because I believed the maintenance costs would be lower and the installation seemed easier. I was trying to achieve a safer environment for the forklift truck drivers through visual safeguards and my biggest issue was excessive damage due to forklift impact.”
Of course, A-SAFE offers companies in the food and beverage market a whole lot more. A-SAFE barriers are ‘wipe-clean’, non-toxic and resistant to chemicals and they do not corrode or flake like traditional barriers, meaning rust or scraps of old paint do not corrupt food hygiene standards.
Whether it’s Eight O’Clock or round-the-clock, A-SAFE barriers are becoming the go-to product for modern food and beverage companies who want to improve their Health & Safety practices and protections.
