BY Charlotte Webster-
KFC has been fined £1m after two of its employees suffered severe burns handling gravy without gloves.
In separate incidents, a 16 year old boy and woman were hurt in restaurants in Stockton, Teeside Magistrates were told.
The incidents happened in 2014 and 2015.
The fast food chain admitted health and safety breaches and were ordered to pay £950,000 in in damages, and £18,700 in fines.
When environmental health officers visited the branch in Wellington Square on December 3, 2015, staff were unable to find any protective gloves.
This discovery was shocking because the woman who suffered burns had experienced this two days earlier. KFC insisted that the accident that occurred was a rarity, but their admittance of failing to follow procedures
was enough to warrant a hefty fine imposed on them.
All organisations are expected to follow safety procedures, the frequency of accidents is irrelevant to the requirement of abiding by rules and regulations.
Stockton Borough Council, who brought about the prosecution did the right thing by holding the fast food chain to account. KFC are a profit making business who clearly prioritize profit making over health and safety measures.
Already, the food they sell is very unhealthy to the human system, causing layers of fat to build on the arteries and generally distorting the ideal figures of its customers, also making weight loss more difficult than usual.
KFC can always argue that their business is customer based, and therefore needs not consider the dietary interests of individuals since that is primarily a matter for customers to cater for.
This does not change the undeniable fact that the fast food chain contributes to the perpetuation of unhealthy diets and unwittingly exploits the hunger and drunken lifestyle of many of its customers, who after a club night out will pounce at the nearest KFC they see to fill in their hunger. Business is business, but the truth cannot be hidden by it. The least expected of KFC is for them to at least take health and safety measures in the course of their duties.
Failures of this type open up further questions of whether there are also serious hygiene breaches going on which have not yet been observed or highlighted.
The huge damages and fine imposed on KFC by the courts will hopefully serve as a big lesson to all fast food chain companies, and indeed all food organisations, to always pursue health and safety measures.
With the huge fine will automatically come some idea or invention by KFC to try and make up the money lost. They temptation to raise prices will be there, but they dare not do this. A penalty is meant to impact the offending party, not call for counteractive measures through cost increases to recoup the money lost in damages. The main damage done here is to their reputation, and only they can find a sensible way to improve and change that harmed reputation.