Food processing plants

[Badbadbunny]

Anyone else think it's worrying that food processing plants seem to be high risk for Covid? We had those three in Wales, then the one in Leicester and now a newly reported outbreak at one in Kirklees.

Obviously Covid is the main issue at the moment, but does it suggest lax hygiene generally and if so, is that not a worry with it being food processing as surely it increases the risk of other "nasties" entering the food chain.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/53137613

Have you got a link to the New Kirklees one? Or are you referring to the Kober foods one which was over two weeks ago.

As for reasons. Cold and damp atmosphere, close working conditions, large staff turnover who often live in HMO and travel to work together.

No, it doesn’t mean other “nastys” can get in the food. There’s a huge number of checks and controls to prevent that.

Food hygiene is fine in the vast majority. They are inspected by local authority, customers and third party au itors.
The problem is the ones that have a lot of hand work, so emoyees are close together and as PP said, cold and often damp products depending on the product.
Something like Canning, which is quite automated (in Europe) and naturally lows people to be well separated is different to poultry or sandwiches, for example, where there are high staffing levels as a lot of manual input is required and the product has to be kept chilled.