Chemical Hazards on the Processing Floor

Food processing plants are built around keeping food safe, and that takes a lot of chemicals. Caustic and acid cleaners run through clean-in-place systems, sanitizers like chlorine and peracetic acid are used on every shift, ammonia keeps cold rooms running, and lubricants, pest control products and water treatment chemicals all have their place on site.

These chemicals work close to the food line and the people on it. Sanitation crews handle concentrates during washdowns, maintenance teams work near refrigeration systems, and line workers move between wet, busy areas where a spill or a mixed product can quickly become an exposure.

This session looks at where chemical risk really sits in food processing, and how up-to-date, accessible Safety Data Sheets (SDSs) help teams handle these chemicals safely every day.

What We’ll Cover

1. Where the Risks Really Are: the chemicals food processing workers handle most, and where exposure happens across production, sanitation and maintenance.
2. Cleaning and Sanitation: keeping crews safe during routine washdowns, CIP cycles and deep cleans, including the risks of mixing incompatible products.
3. When Things Go Wrong: handling spills, leaks and exposures, from a chlorine release to an ammonia leak, and how the SDS guides the response.
4. PPE in the Real World: bridging the gap between the PPE listed on the SDS and what workers actually wear in hot, wet and fast-moving environments.
5. Labels and Communication: making sure every container, including decanted and diluted chemicals, is labeled and understood by a multilingual workforce.
6. Building a Safety Culture: getting workers to speak up about chemical concerns before they put people or products at risk.

Event Format

• Live Webinar
• Expert Panel Discussion
• Interactive Audience Q&A
• Recorded Session (available after the event)

• 0:00Welcome and meet the panel
• 10:26Chemical risks and overlooked exposure routes
• 20:29Wet work and what it does to the skin
• 29:18Incompatible mixing and common gaps
• 43:46When an incident happens: the first minutes and the SDS
• 54:07PPE and gloves in the real world
• 58:21Digital SDS management and offline access
• 1:09:27Audience Q&A and key takeaways