Unguarded corn milling machine produces costly safety risk

A Victorian Mexican food product manufacturer has been fined $23,000 (increased on appeal from $12,500) and ordered to pay costs after a worker was injured when cleaning the corn milling machine (WorkSafe Victoria v Authentic Mexican Foods Pty Ltd [in liquidation] [2025]).

The incident

Authentic Mexican Foods Pty Ltd, trading as ‘El Cielo’ (El Cielo), operated at a workplace in Airport West manufacturing Mexican food products.

On 30 November 2022, Victoria Police notified WorkSafe Victoria’s incident response coordinator of an alleged amputation at El Cielo’s workplace. Inspectors from WorkSafe attended the site and observed that a corn milling machine was partially disassembled for cleaning despite having power still applied to it. An emergency stop button had not been activated and there were no indications that any guard was missing off the machine for the purpose of cleaning.

On review of CCTV footage, it was determined that the injured person had been accessing part of the machine (a pipe) that allowed access to moving parts of the plant including the Archimedes screw inside. The injured worker was seen putting his hand up the pipe before immediately withdrawing it and appearing distressed. A blue covered plastic type material, consistent with the glove the injured person was wearing, was identified within the machine.

Safety measures

The Court observed that El Cielo:

did not have a permanently fixed guard to physically prevent an employee from accessing the danger area of the corn milling machine; and
could not rely simply on training where there clearly should have been a guard in place.

After the incident, El Cielo installed a fixed guard.

Charge and sentencing

El Cielo was charged and pleaded guilty to failing to provide a safe work environment by preventing or minimising the risk to employees who cleaned the corn milling machine.

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