Cider, Liqueur, Mead, and Moonshine: Safety Equipment for Your Alternative Spirits Business
It’s an exciting, vibrant, and challenging time for craft breweries, cideries, and all independent producers of alcoholic beverages. There has been a renaissance for the craft brewery and distillery industries, with huge growth in the past few years. That’s a bit of a double-edged sword. It means there is a great community of like-minded distillers for informational and moral support, ready-made supply chains for sourcing equipment, and a wealth of other resources. It also means a lot of competition.
In an industry that competitive, and one with notoriously slim profit margins, the last thing any craft distiller of a niche spirit like cider, liqueur, mead, or moonshine needs is to find their business’s success threatened by something like not having the right safety equipment. Sometimes that equipment is a quality pair of work gloves, sometimes it’s a reliable keg handling hand truck.
Safety Equipment and PPE
Of all the alcoholic beverage production undertakings, nothing is quite so personal as an alternative distiller, moonshiner, or cidery. It’s a true labor of love, and commonly the businesses are small. Sometimes, the minutiae of safely running a distillery isn’t first in the mind of someone who’s got a mind-blowing grappa or cinnamon brandy recipe. Unfortunately, a single accident can have severe repercussions for even a small or family operation.
Basic personal protective equipment (PPE) is a must, such as gloves, a hardhat in production areas, and eye and ear protection. It can be easy to overlook something like eye protection while cleaning, but keep in mind that distilleries are full of machinery containing steam, boiling liquids, pressurized peracetic acid solution and so on—nothing that anyone wants contacting unprotected skin. So don’t risk it.
It’s not just about safety glasses and gloves, either. Sometimes a 2 wheel dolly is exactly what’s called for. In order to proactively prevent injuries, workers should be outfitted with the proper equipment to transport equipment and products, so dollies and hand trucks with specialized backs for handling kegs and barrels are also vital tools.
Lifting and Moving Risks During Production
The most common workplace injuries resulting in lost days of work, by a considerable margin, are muscle strains and injuries. The most common cause of those strains is overexertion, specifically, lifting and lowering injuries. The fact is, in addition to the safety risk posed by distilleries being workplaces featuring boiling liquids and liquid under high pressure, steam, and caustic chemicals, they feature a lot of lifting risks. The average distillery’s operation requires the transportation of grains, sugar, yeast, any number of containers full of fluids, and the like simply for production.
Additionally, producers of liqueurs, mead, and ciders additionally require transport of fruits, honey, or lots and lots of apples. For the safe by-hand moving of a variety of cargo, consider picking up a convertible or collapsible hand truck as they offer more moving versatility than a traditional hand truck. After production, the spirits are bottled and packed, with those cases, pallets, or flats requiring transportation elsewhere on the premises, to a tasting room, or to a loading dock for distribution. Finally, distilleries often feature equipment a few stories tall. That means working at height. Take no chances on the quality and stability of the floors, stairs, ladders, and any other features of the distillery contributing to the balance and safety of the staff.
About Magline
For more than 70 years, the word “Magliner” has been a byword for the best equipment available to those working in material handling. In fact, Magliner equipment is such an industry standard, the name is often used to reference any hand cart. Don’t be fooled, however: There is simply no substitute for Magliner quality, dependability, and ease of use. Along with the traditional Magliner hand truck, they offer a diverse selection of specialized equipment, including their stair climbing cart line, walk behind forklift line, and an electric hand truck line for heavier jobs. For delivery, warehouses, trucking and logistics, and any other task that requires hauling something, there’s a Magliner for the job.
Choose the best tool for the job by choosing Magliner products, at Magliner.com
Original Source: https://bit.ly/2LpR0CH