Incident
Two workers – an employee of Samworth Brothers Ltd and a contractor – suffered burns during maintenance work on steam pipework in the boiler room of the Kettleby Foods factory in Melton Mowbray, United Kingdom. Samworth Brothers owns brands including Ginsters, Soreen and West Cornwall Pasty Co. The men had to replace a leaking gasket in an isolation valve on the steam pipework and had climbed onto an inadequate gantry above the boiler to do so. When the gasket was removed, hot water sprayed over them. One worker suffered burns to 4-5% of his body surface, the other second-degree burns to 9% of his body surface. Both victims required medical treatment for their injuries.
Findings
The UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that Samworth Brothers had failed to risk-assess the maintenance task, document a safe system of work, correctly isolate and lock off the steam pipework, provide adequate fall protection despite the work at height, and organise sufficient supervision. In other words, the organisation fell short at almost every level of the standard safety hierarchy – from planning to execution and oversight. The company pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, which requires employers to ensure the health, safety and welfare of their workers so far as reasonably practicable. The court (Birmingham Magistrates’ Court, 4 September 2026) ruled the incident “wholly avoidable”; an HSE inspector stated that “a company this size should have known better.”
Recommendations
The ruling and accompanying HSE statement stress that maintenance work on pressurised pipe systems must always be preceded by a risk assessment, with a documented safe system of work, correct isolation/lock-off of pipework before work begins, suitable fall protection for work at height, and active supervision during execution. This lesson is relevant to EHS professionals worldwide: maintenance on steam and pressure pipework remains a recurring source of serious injury in food manufacturing and beyond, regardless of jurisdiction, precisely because it is often treated as routine while the underlying energy sources (pressure, heat) remain hazardous until formally isolated. A temporary or improvised platform, as used here, is a well-known risk in work at height and deserves explicit attention in every risk assessment.
Financial consequences: a fine of £594,000, £5,834 in prosecution costs, a £2,000 victim surcharge and £6,000 compensation to the injured employee, payable by 4 January 2027.
Source: Food manufacturing giant fined £594,000 after two workers scalded at Melton Mowbray site, 16 September 2026
