Northern Foods shares were delisted from the London Stock Exchange from 13 May 2011

Health and Safety

We believe that nothing is more important than the health and safety of our colleagues and that the delivery of a positive safety culture demonstrates respect for colleagues.

The health and safety agenda is discussed at every level of the business from production floor to board meetings at daily, weekly and monthly intervals. We have a commitment to achieve continuous improvement, we report every year on our performance, and our Health and Safety Policy sets out our standards.

Injury accidents down to half the industry average

During the year to April 2010 we placed emphasis on reducing risks in key causation areas such as slips and trips, transport, and working at height, as well as providing training accredited by the Institute of Occupational Safety and Health across the entire management population.

As a result of these and many other initiatives, the total days lost to injury accidents was down to 1,416, nearly half the previous year’s total, which in turn was nearly 20 per cent down on the year before.  The number of accidents resulting in lost-time injuries was down to less than one in every 200,000 hours worked, which is half the average for the food industry.

Our improvement strategy continues to focus on cultural and behavioural change, with efforts being maintained in key areas such as audits and surveys, training and technical development, and property protection.  Safety representatives at the production sites have been heavily involved in a comprehensive programme to promote safety-conscious behaviour.

In our 2010 employment satisfaction survey, 89 per cent of colleagues who responded agreed that the company was doing all it reasonably could to ensure a safe working environment.

Health and safety management

We have developed our health and safety leadership model and have embedded processes at board, business unit, and site level in accordance with the Institute of Directors guidance on 'Leading Health and Safety at Work'.  We will continue to focus on developing our health and safety leadership model, enhancing our proven improvement tools with new 'smarter' performance-tracking processes and innovative training and development processes.

We have introduced a revised audit protocol with increased focus on strong operational risk management. This focus has generated detailed improvement plans, driven investment in physical risk-reduction initiatives, and will continue to be a key part of our health-and-safety management system.

We have also been working closely with the government’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) through the Large Organisation Pilot Project initiative.  The HSE have been involved in our annual health and safety conference and the Best Practice Awards. We have also been working closely with the regulator to implement new and innovative approaches to managing issues such as occupational road risk.

Fire prevention

To protect our premises and the long-term job opportunities of our people, there is a continuing focus on the reduction of process-related fires.  Suppression systems have been fitted to all ovens, where the risk assessment indicated a need, together with all our production frying operations. Our Fire Risk Management Standards have been refreshed and the management of process fire risks through high standards of housekeeping, waste control and plant management is a priority for all of our sites.

Business continuity

We have also been working to develop comprehensive Business Continuity Plans (BCP) in the event of a major accident.  Each business unit has re-examined its strategies for managing and recovering from a crisis such as a process fire or flood. These plans have been subsequently tested to ensure that sites can deal with all eventualities.