Published on: September 22, 2025

Behind the warmth of fresh bread are the daily realities of bakery work — aching muscles, potentially slick floors, searing oven heat, sharp blades, and dangerous machines — all requiring control measures to minimize risks.

By Marnie Douglas

To help address these hazards, a group of Lower Mainland bakeries came together to form the Bakery Safety Council. Supported by the BC Chapter of the Baking Association of Canada, these employers are talking about safety challenges and are sharing solutions, workplace designs, and proven safety practices to make bakeries safer. The council welcomes all bakeries to join them in helping to improve safety across the industry.

“We identified that bakeries were trending toward a high-risk industry,” explains Tami Der, industry and program specialist at WorkSafeBC. She reached out to a number of bakeries who then invited Der and WorkSafeBC ergonomists to tour their facilities and help them identify musculoskeletal (MSI) risks. 

“Several of these bakeries are huge, there are miles of conveyor belts, mixing bowls that are six feet across. They are complex operations, and there are areas where workers can suffer injuries. Since the risk of MSIs is most predominant within this industry, we wanted to start there.”

Not just a piece of cake 

Between 2019 and 2023, bakeries had 276 WorkSafeBC claims for overexertion, which can lead to MSIs. Falls on the same level accounted for 151 claims, highlighting the importance of maintaining safe floor surfaces. There were also 135 “struck-by” incidents, which can include cuts from bakery machines, and 102 “caught-in” injuries, such as workers getting fingers caught in hoppers or dough equipment.

“Workers often handle heavy bags of flour, sugar, butter, and other ingredients,” says Der. “While bins and racks are commonly used to move these items, improper use of the racks can also lead to MSIs.” Repetitive tasks are another major MSI risk. “We see a lot of MSI claims from packing areas due to frequent lifting, twisting, and bending. Over time, this can lead to injury,” says Der. 

MSI risks on the rise 

WorkSafeBC ergonomist Tami Perkins says that through discussions with employers and tours of several bakeries, the council identified three key areas leading to an increased risk of MSIs: moving large and heavy racks and/or carts that hold baking trays, transferring ingredients to and from mixers, and manually loading and unloading ovens.

Adds WorkSafeBC ergonomist Sania Safari: “Once we identified the risks, we worked with the council to understand their challenges and how we could assist them going forward.”

To mitigate risk, Safari says it’s important to: 

• Plan work in the early stages or when changes to equipment, tools or processes are introduced, to understand what effect they may have across the overall process.
• Keep tools and materials close to the body, ideally between knee and shoulder height, to minimize strain. This helps avoid awkward reaching or lifting.
• Store frequently used items within easy reach and at a comfortable work height.

Collaboration baked into safety

At the same time they were touring bakeries, Der contacted the BC Chapter of the Bakery Association of Canada. “We started talking about safety and how we could start that larger health and safety conversation,” she says. “They jumped on board.”

The Bakery Safety Council officially held its first meeting in November 2024, hosted by Island City Baking. Sponsored by the Baking Association of Canada, the meeting brought together health and safety representatives from bakeries across the Lower Mainland to discuss industry-specific risks.

“It was the first time we’ve done anything like this with bakeries,” says Der, adding the response has been overwhelmingly positive, with plans now in place to hold the meetings quarterly. At the first meeting, Perkins and Safari were present to support discussion of MSI risks identified within the industry. Future topics include MSI prevention, human factors approach to incident investigations, and return-to-work obligations.

“Bakeries were aware of hazards and associated risks but didn’t always know how to deal with them or implement the proper controls. I think the resources we’ve produced and provided through the Bakery Council have really helped these bakeries understand the importance of performing risk assessment and the controls,” adds Der.

Behind the batch

Lisa Greaves is the health and safety manager at Stuyver’s Bread, a 100,000-square-foot commercial bakery in Langley producing 3,500 kilograms of bread and rolls every hour. The bakery is highly automated, including one oven that is “the size of a transport trailer,” says Greaves.

As a large, automated bakery, risks to workers include MSIs from lifting, pushing, and pulling, as well as exposure to flour dust and heat. With its recent expansion, Stuyver’s recognized several areas where they could make health and safety improvements.

“There aren’t a lot of people working at the large oven directly, but it does radiate heat,” she explains. The bakery now combats heat stress with a full HVAC monitoring system to maintain a steady temperature between 23–25 °C, plus large fans for hot spots, hydration stations throughout the facility, and water bottles for every worker.

As well, workers previously had to bend under a hot, six-foot stainless-steel kettle to fill heavy grain buckets, creating a significant risk of MSI strain and burns. To solve this, the maintenance team worked with the employer to design a simple but effective solution: a floor-mounted track with a trolley and an extended handle. Now, workers can stay safely outside the kettle area, use the handle to fill the bucket, and easily pull it out on the trolley — reducing both physical strain and the risk of injury.

She’s found working with WorkSafeBC ergonomists “super helpful,” particularly from a risk assessment perspective, and the Bakery Safety Council a practical forum for sharing challenges, best practices, and improving safety standards across the industry.

“We all face similar struggles, so when we meet as part of the council, we talk about the different situations, what we’re all doing to address issues. It’s a really good group,” says Greaves.

A sprinkle of grit

Island City Baking has a commercial bakery with 12 small ovens in Richmond and a frozen dough facility in Burnaby. With one being manual and one being more automated, there are different hazards and associated risks to workers in each facility, says Nick Lorenzo, production shift and OHS manager at Island City Baking.

For their manual operation, the biggest hazards were cuts, slips, trips, and falls, says Lorenzo. When Island City renovated and remodelled the floors, grit was added to the floor surface to make the floors less slippery. Workers also wear slip-proof shoes.

Similar to Greaves’ experience, Lorenzo says participating in the Bakery Safety Council has created valuable opportunities to share ideas and best practices. “We’ve brainstormed different approaches, different ideas, for similar issues. We talked about adding the grit to our floor surface and another one of the bakeries had not considered that, so it was good to talk about our different experiences.”

Growing a culture of safety

Jesse Lamb, chair for the BC Chapter of the Baking Association of Canada and manager for Island City Baking, says he’s encouraged by the collaboration among the Bakery Safety Council members. There are five bakeries on board, currently, and he’s hopeful more will see the benefits and consider joining.

“It’s been a really great response so far, we have open and frank discussions about issues and possible solutions,” he says. “We all understand  that the financial bottom line has to be considered. We’d love to eliminate all risk from the hazards that are present but that’s not always possible, so we talk about risk assessment process and determining the level of risk that specific hazards pose to workers.” 

He wants to share results and feedback from the council at the national level and is optimistic that every province can eventually establish a similar council.

“Anytime that we can collaborate to improve safety and talk about how to manage risks to keep workers safe, that’s a positive and should be shared across the industry.”

For further information

Visit our Ergonomics and Assessing risks webpages for more information. If you are the owner or manager of a commercial bakery and would like to participate on the Bakery Safety Council, please contact Jesse Lamb, chair for the BC Chapter of the Baking Association of Canada at jesse.lamb@islandcitybaking.com.

---

This article originally appeared in the Fall 2025 issue of WorkSafe Magazine.

To read more or to subscribe, visit WorkSafe Magazine.