Tea manufacturing steeped in safety
TreeHouse Foods, Inc. is a leading North American supplier of private-label and co-manufactured packaged foods and beverage products, with 27 production facilities across Canada and the United States.
By Sarah Ripplinger
A systematic approach to operations at the TreeHouse Foods facility in Delta, B.C., has smoothed workflows while enhancing safety for workers. The facility packages tea blends into a variety of tea bag types, such as paper and mesh pyramid filters, using specialized equipment.
“The Delta facility has 13 lines of tea bag manufacturing machines with each line producing up to 350 tea bags per minute,” shares Ajith Pathigoda, a technical manager who has been with the company, formerly known as North American Tea and Coffee and later Associated Brands, since 1999.
This facility employs more than 100 hourly workers on three shifts, making effective information-sharing essential. Workers move between the production floor, machine shop, storage and shipping areas, and office throughout their shift. To make sense of this maze of movement, the company has identified frameworks that eliminate guesswork and minimize health and safety risks.
Automating processes
“Investing in equipment upgrades has made a huge impact on employee morale, health, and safety,” shares Pathigoda. In 2014, the company purchased state-of-the-art equipment in support of worker health and safety, particularly the reduction or elimination of excess bending, lifting heavy objects, and repetitive movements that come with a higher risk of musculoskeletal injury (MSI).
Workers once poured loose leaf tea manually into a hopper for processing. A new automated vacuum-feeding and crane hoist system transfers the tea into a hopper to be automatically poured into tea bags. Processed tea bags then travel along a conveyor belt, getting packed into boxes made using a newly automated boxing process.
“Previously, an employee needed to open up a flat box, then place it on the conveyor belt, which involved repetitive wrist and hand movement,” explains Rajat Bhola, TreeHouse Foods plant manager who has been with the company since 2019. “An in-house team designed a new automated corrugated box–making and packing process for building up and securing boxes, eliminating the manual process. This enables employees to focus more on safety and quality checks on the line.”
Height-adjustable pallet jacks lift skids of boxes to a worker’s waist height, eliminating the need for bending and lifting in this process. On some lines, an automated palletizer robotic arm grabs boxes off the conveyor belt and places them onto skids or pallets to be transported by forklift to the next stage of production.
“The company has put in numerous protections and safeguards — including machinery lockout procedures to prevent worker injury — that have made TreeHouse Foods a leader in workplace health and safety,” says Sugavanam Prabhakaran, an occupational safety officer with WorkSafeBC who has consulted with the Delta facility.
Decluttering
The Delta facility’s Process Improvement Team (PIT) was tasked with reducing unnecessary movement across the production floor. They enlisted the help of problem-solving tools, such as Plan, Do, Check, Act; Ishikawa fishbone diagrams; and spaghetti diagrams, to draft an improved floor layout that minimizes hazards and creates a safer and more efficient workspace.
“The team has excellent processes for eliminating slips and trips,” shares Prabhakaran. For example, the PIT team recently recommended reorganizing the staging area to open up space for easier access to skids and eliminate overreaching.
Shadow boards were placed throughout the work area to offer visual guides for where to place tools such as box cutters and other supplies, to help eliminate the chore of hunting for tools.
Driving “safety ownership by all,” implementing processes such as hazard recognition, and increasing near miss reporting have helped the team focus on critical losses and implement countermeasures that reduce incidents.
Checking in
Worker feedback on facility safety protocols is gathered on a regular basis. A worker representative sits on the facility’s Environmental Health and Safety Pillar council, also composed of managers and joint health and safety committee team members. The council meets twice a month to discuss trends, recommend interventions, and support the employee-led joint committee, reporting back to corporate headquarters. It shares email updates for best practices and lessons learned across company facilities.
During the plant’s weekly Gemba Walks — a continuous improvement tool — leadership team members walk the production line floor, speaking with workers about their roles and observing what’s happening on the line. “This direct experience deepens leadership’s understanding of any potential challenges and hazards on the production floor,” says Bhola. “For example, the team noticed that some conveyor belts were causing bump hazards and promptly took action to shorten or remove these where possible.”
Monthly round-table meetings are cross-functional opportunities for a rotating group of hourly employees from each shift and managers to openly converse about workplace ideas and challenges, shares Bhola.
The behavioural observation scale (BOS) is also used to audit workplace operations. When employees engage in the BOS peer-to-peer protocol, they first scan a QR code that brings up the company’s corresponding BOS form for a given task. One employee observes another employee at work, such as lifting an object. The first employee documents the actions performed and compares them against the company’s standard — for example, the correct ergonomic body posture to use when lifting.
Observers offer accolades or suggestions for improvement based on the company standard. “This approach empowers workers, bringing health and safety into the open for all the workers,” Prabhakaran says. “The information that workers collect on the BOS forms is also helpful for tracking and analyzing safety trends in the workplace.”
Celebrating safety
TreeHouse Foods Delta presented five days of safety education at its most recent annual safety week, which had this theme: “My safety. My commitment. Every day!” Topics covered included evacuation protocols; powered industrial vehicle, chemical, and pedestrian safety; MSI symptoms and prevention; and mental health and well-being.
On a monthly basis, employees are recognized for demonstrating safe practices and suggesting ideas or improvement opportunities. Managers recognize employees on TreeTop Achievers, the company’s online recognition portal and will also award preferred parking spots for the month.
Worker suggestions and management-implemented solutions at the Delta facility are posted on the in-house “You Said It, We Did It” notice board to demonstrate accountability in responding to workers’ suggestions, shares Bhola.
“Year after year, TreeHouse Foods Delta has recorded significant ergonomic improvements, resulting in decreased workplace incidents,” Pathigoda notes. Results from the company’s most recent anonymous annual employee survey ranked the Delta facility high in terms of worker safety, scoring 91 out of 100.
“Our employees feel that any issue they bring to management gets addressed immediately, and that not only do they feel safe at our workplace; they feel that we are proactive in making this workplace safer,” says Bhola.
For more information
Visit our Ergonomics webpage to learn more about reducing the risk of MSIs in the workplace.
This information originally appeared in the Spring 2025 issue of WorkSafe Magazine. To read more or to subscribe, visit WorkSafe Magazine.
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