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Safe, Efficient, Profitable: A Worker Safety Podcast
Joe and Jen Allen of Allen Safety LLC take their combined 40+ years of worker safety, OSHA, EPA, production, sanitation, and engineering experience in Manufacturing Plants including Harvest Plants/Packers, Case Readies and Further Processing Plants, Food Production Plants, Feed Mills, Grain Elevators, Bakeries, Farms, Feed Lots, and Petro-Chemical and bring you their top methods for identifying risk, preventing injuries, conquering the workload, auditing, managing emergencies and catastrophic events, and working through OSHA citations. They're breaking down real safety opportunities, safety citations, and emergency situations from real locations, and discussing realistic solutions that can actually be implement based on their personal experiences spending 40+ weeks in the field every year since 2001. Joe and Jen are using all of that experience to provide a fresh outlook on worker safety by providing honest, (no sponsors here!) and straight forward, easy to understand safety coaching with actionable guidance to move your safety program forward in a way that provides tangible results.
Safe, Efficient, Profitable: A Worker Safety Podcast
The Battle Between Food & Worker Safety: Pathogens Vs. PPE
Welcome to the cage match no one talks about—but everyone in food and meat production lives through. This week, Joe and Jen are tackling the heavyweight showdown between two giants in every facility: Worker Safety vs. Food Safety. Who takes priority when things go sideways? Who gets to call the shots when it’s time to shut it all down? And most importantly—how do we keep from shutting down the whole operation when both teams are “just trying to do their job”?
If you’ve ever sat in a Thursday morning sanitation meeting and realized you now need PPE, a tie-off plan, confined space permits, and a miracle—this episode is for you. Joe and Jen don’t sugarcoat the chaos that can erupt when worker safety and food safety don’t align. Instead, they break it down and offer real-world, practical solutions that facilities can use right now to reduce friction, protect workers, and still keep compliant with every letter of the USDA, FDA, OSHA, and whatever other acronym is looming over your clipboard.
🧠 What You’ll Learn:
🥊 The Source of the Conflict
Why worker safety and food safety frequently butt heads, even though both are trying to “do the right thing”
How different regulatory agencies (OSHA vs USDA/FDA) create a confusing tug-of-war in decision-making
The emotional toll and operational cost of "shut it all down" moments when there's no clear prioritization
🔧 Tactical Takeaways (You Can Use Today)
How to create a shared 5-point conflict matrix between food safety and worker safety—before things go wrong
Identifying “hot zones” in your plant: Anywhere you have elevated work + sanitation + guarding + QA reps = Risk
Flashlight = red flag. What this simple tool tells you about potential violations and future downtime
Why Tuesday-Wednesday is when worker safety needs to be in the loop—not Friday morning at 7AM
How to conduct a 15-minute “risk walk” to spot top hazards without spending your whole shift doing audits
🧠 SEO Keywords (Built for Search Engines AND Humans):
Worker Safety vs Food Safety
Conflicts in Food Processing Facilities
Sanitation and Safety Alignment
Safety Risk Assessments in Manufacturing
Flashlight Confined Space Incidents
Food Safety Chemicals and PPE
Safety Planning for Food Plant Sanitation
Cross-Functional Safety Planning
FSQR and EHS Collaboration
Elevated Work and Fall Protection in Food Plants
Chemical Testing Safety Procedures
Risk Walk Safety Audits
How to Prioritize Safety in a Food Manufacturing Plant
🎁 Resources Mentioned:
✅ AllenSafety.com – For on-site coaching, plant assessments, and in-person training
✅ AllenSafetyCoaching.com – Free email coaching, 100+ exclusive commercial-free training videos, virtual courses, and support
🙏 Support the Podcast:
If you’ve ever dodged a falling flashlight, begged for a last-minute scissor lift, or gotten blindsided by a 7AM Thursday meeting, this podcast was made for you.
👍 Like, subscribe, and share with your safety/QA teams
📨 Submit your questions or conflict scenarios
💸 We don’t make money on this—but your clicks help us push content to the folks who really need it
This video is intended for educational purposes. Solutions offered are not designed to take the place of an attorney or medical professional, and should not be taken as legal or medical advice. It is recommended that viewers consult a safety consultant, medical provider or an occupational safety legal team as applicable to help navigate their specific circumstances.
Welcome back to the channel. Today, joe Jen, we're talking about conflict. Let's pick the number one conflict we see at our locations. That seems to be between worker safety, food safety.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go with that. I think opposite safety and safety and engineer I mean safety is just at odds with everybody. It seems like some days, but that's all right.
Speaker 1:And the reason we're doing this episode is that it is the two kind of different agencies and regulatory that kind of go against each other and it's hard to.
Speaker 2:Well, I think, I think the reason why we want to cover this is because it's hard to figure out, like what most important in the next five minutes is food safety. The most important thing is worker safety the most important thing. Well, who really cares if we don't put product at the door and if y'all keep standing on that equipment over there, well, we're never going to get running again so engineering's aggravated.
Speaker 2:So there's all these things that start coming into play. But it really does seem like when you wave the flag of like hey, we got to shut everything down, we got to stop this, we got problems. It has to do with safety, whether it be worker, it's correct.
Speaker 1:Those are the two that really and then people show up, a lot of people show up, and then you start deciding that moment, of which one who wins out?
Speaker 2:yep, and, and I will also say that I see a lot of changes happen in the name of food safety that do impact worker safety absolutely, and if we don't manage those cohesively that can create a lot of a lot of risk. That's correct.
Speaker 1:So you've got the five rules you want to follow food safety, your location and you've got five absolutes that joe the safety manager wants to have at your location absolutely, and they're none of me line up. So what you got to do then is you got to start breaking down really that risk, and that's hard to do because it is literally per location different ways it can look. You can have different food safety.
Speaker 2:It's the same product at two different plants be completely different and the work of safety can be completely different yeah, so I think that there's like the gm piece, right, we all know like don't chew gum on the production floor.
Speaker 1:We got it right like these nails. Lock out. You better lock out from the safe side on safety.
Speaker 2:We're gonna lock out, we're gonna do all these things, but there's all this like weird gray area do I lock out if I'm cleaning a conveyor, if, if I can stand back.
Speaker 1:So that started, well, why do I clean it?
Speaker 2:because food safety needs to be cleaner right now yes, so there's a lot of things that we change and modify because we need to do it from a food safety standpoint. So intensified cleaning Absolutely.
Speaker 1:That can mean that can change PPE for me.
Speaker 2:Yep, and it can also be like, okay, that's great. How am I going to tie off there? Right, I have to now reach this weird thing. I have no system in place to access that and I have to do it tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, but I got to have guarding on my side.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:So if I've got guarding can't take that guarding off. But you got to do elevated. I don't know where you're going to tie out. Then we're like, well, how are we going to clean it? Still?
Speaker 2:So yes, it's a challenge.
Speaker 1:So that's what we're trying to get you to do in this episode is take. Take those five items each she has five items. I find whatever role we are, it doesn't matter and take those and get ahead of it, because we know there's the way we normally run the business, and then we know there's the way when things don't go right, so so we want you to address those issues so that's the first thing is that we.
Speaker 2:We have some things that we can kind of anticipate. I would assume that food safety at your facility you can check with them, but have some kind of plan when things go left right. We have a recall when we pop positive for different buggies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we take a sample that morning and it's bad.
Speaker 2:Yep, we've got listeria, We've got some of these different things. We need to do some different steps, change our methods a little bit. We get some kind of something in the product and now we have issues.
Speaker 1:Our stuff's tagged and nrs and all the things so that what time of day that is affects the safety side dramatically. If it happens during pre-op sanitation, just clean it, we're okay. Happens at 9 am during a product changeover. Now the same task may be done by a lawyer of mine that works at my location. Did I train them correctly to do that task? Now that same thing happens in the afternoon during shift change. We're going to shut everything down and just clean everything for everybody. Now we're into downtime, so you've got to plan out these different sectors.
Speaker 2:I think the biggest thing that we need to do is and I know that this sounds great, right, just take some time, just you've got nothing. I know that this, this sounds great, right, just take some time, just you've got nothing, nothing. I know that no one has any time, I recognize that. But when you are reviewing some of your food safety plans and your chemical handling plans chemical management plans in regards to how you're going to handle some of these circumstances that inevitably, at sister locations or at that location, have come up before or are likely to or could come up if we don't manage things a certain way, that contingency plans right, let's look at those contingency plans as as as a cohesive unit between food safety and worker safety and figure out how are we going to do this.
Speaker 2:If we have to do intensified sanitation, where are we standing? Where are we tying off? Happens if we pop positive over here? How are we going to handle that? How are positive over here? How are we going to handle that? How are we going to handle that over here if we're going to get a new chemical?
Speaker 1:we have a chemical absolutely onboarding process from the safety side may not be anything the same as what you're looking at.
Speaker 2:Yeah, food safety side so if we're bringing on a new chemical, new acquisition, we've got some different evaluations that we've got to do for that and one of them is testing some plants does it work?
Speaker 1:we have to test it first to see if it works. But from the worker safety side we don't maybe have a testing protocol for that or PPE.
Speaker 2:We may not have a testing protocol. We may also not have the right PPE right.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And it also depends let's be very clear on how are we intending on using this? So that's when we want to start getting reps involved, that's when we want to start talking to the chemists. You know PPE or handling instructions for how I want to use this chemical that being told I can use in this way, let's let's talk to the chemist about what do we need to be wearing?
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And and make sure that we have some of that on site ahead of time.
Speaker 1:We get the training and maybe and maybe we do the testing on an off shift on a down day, Sunday. So from my world I've got almost nobody there.
Speaker 2:So I'm not having to have PPE for 100 people in a room, maybe just three.
Speaker 1:Correct. So now I'm going to take that chemical and I'm going to have different levels of the plant per plant. Okay, so now from sanitation we say 100 to 300 is our range. Every plant may have a number. Find out what that number is, so the worker safety people can start doing their math so that's, that's a great point.
Speaker 2:So we do see different from the sanitation side, because we've told you right we do a lot with sanitation and it is incredible how we will go from in a company or to sister locations or to other companies that manufacture the same items the product but we all have different numbers that we're titrating to same general typical, maybe a slightly different makeup, but the intent and the use.
Speaker 1:And there's a range for each one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's this range and it's different. We'll see totally opposite ends of the spectrum and that does change my PPE, because across the board, the PPE is usually standardized. It doesn't change. It's the same for all of those locations. But the range is different and especially if we start having people get nervous that things are not maybe coming out, our swabs are maybe a little sketchy a little iffy.
Speaker 1:Let's clean a little more.
Speaker 2:Let's add a little bit more, but we don't really say anything a little more let's add a little bit more, but we don't really say anything.
Speaker 1:Add more chemical weird, yeah, it gets weird. So, so that that's where you gotta look at. And the last two we have here you've got to look at when you're having these meetings. Everyone has a weekly meeting, kind of food safety, you got. You got to get worker safety in there. Usually it's at 7 am on a thursday on a thursday you gotta be there, got to be there. Worker safety you got to be there. You're behind if not all the people are in the meeting.
Speaker 2:Yes, something else. We're aware of the plant level on Tuesday or Wednesday, if things aren't going well, correct so we can start getting plans together.
Speaker 2:So before we show up to the Thursday or Friday morning meeting, where we're here, we're going to be hand scrubbing everything and we'll need some tie-off points in places. We've never had them before and we'll need them by tomorrow morning, right? We know that things maybe not be great or we know earlier in the week, and so we'll, just for safety, we want to make sure we're getting looped in right earlier.
Speaker 1:So we are bringing start getting plans so if we bring in a contractor in, they're pre-qualified. So if we need somebody to do some welding, we got the right hot work permits. I mean, we got to.
Speaker 2:It's just a matter of we need a little bit of time to brainstorm and then, procure the equipment from a different state.
Speaker 1:I got to rent a sizzle lift tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Now I mean yeah, it takes a minute to make some of that happen and we don't generally want to do that. It's kind of like construction project. We don't want to do it on project day, that's correct.
Speaker 1:You know Now my last one here, most interesting conflict is and the solution we always talk about. We want you to take away some of these episodes. You need to go look at everywhere you have to hand scrub or take a sample, take a guard off. That's elevated so that elevation hand scrubbing.
Speaker 2:Start with that so this could be my fsqr slash anybody whatever you call it or it could be sanitation that's correct, because generally we don't have a lot of ops people doing the samples during the shift, correct?
Speaker 1:but yeah, you got it, that's whether it be a sample of product or swabbing so you can take that and start with the elevated and that'll start telling you because who does that task, how they do it? What shift is going to start telling you because who does that task, how they do it? What shift is going to start telling you bigger stories? And that's what you're trying to do. You're trying to go out on a whatever day, week it is, for 15 minutes walking to the floor and you're trying to figure out how do I find the greatest risk we have here this week. That is one way to do it. Yeah, don't go out all eight hours, just go out that 15 minutes. It's the most critical and you can learn. But look for that elevated, look for those job tests like that. It'll tell you a big story absolutely.
Speaker 2:I think mine would be. Anytime we I see a flashlight oh, that's good, because they tell you where to go look anytime I see a flashlight, just want to make sure that we're not breaking the plane find space our body, head case, you know flashlight maybe the light needs new batteries, check yeah anytime I see a flash yeah, that's good point like does this person need to be locking out? Are we breaking the plane from a guardian standpoint because we've already had sanitation?
Speaker 1:remove locks I'll tell you an interesting one about that. I had someone do a sir blender years ago and they were. They had this flashlight over and if they would have had some way to attach it to them, we wouldn't have confined space entries and been down for so long. When they leaned over that flashlight, they let go. It goes in the bottom mixer blender and now we're doing confined space permits. Now we got to stop pre-op. Now we got gotta reclaim it. All these cycles took off. Everybody's like we're down, but it was all because of a process that we didn't have a control, just in case something went crazy yeah, I guess.
Speaker 2:I guess another thing for me would be you know, if we've got this qr, food safety, whatever you call them, qas, climbing things, let's just make sure that got free hands especially if I'm gonna send somebody to do inspection and a scissor lift.
Speaker 1:I got to give them harness training. So there's all these things that interact. So for today's episode I'm just trying to give you some different ideas to look at A thousand apologies.
Speaker 2:Yes, I forgot how to drink.
Speaker 1:So for this episode, we're trying to give you different things to look at, different ways to maybe look at puzzle. Everyone has a different version of it. All we want you to do is back up and say let's have these discussions ahead of time it does. It's amazing how just having a few minutes Food safety has valid points.
Speaker 2:Food safety has valid points. How do we get them to meet in the middle? These are our opinions. Take them from what you want. Do a lot of safety stuff. We do a lot during pre-op. We do a lot of sanitation.
Speaker 1:These a lot of safety stuff. We do a lot during pre-op.
Speaker 2:We do a lot of sanitation, absolutely so these are just our opinions, some ideas that you can look at, you know, while you're doing your rounds on different shifts, during sanitation, during pre-op, all of the things. If you want some onsite support, Allen Safety LLC we do all this stuff. So, allen-safetycom is where you'll find all of our in-person services. You can reach out that way If in-person stuff isn't in the budget on, safetycoachingcom is a great resource.
Speaker 2:Yep. It's a great resource. You get free email-based coaching with Joe and I as a member of that, as well as access to over 100 different videos. They are commercial free.
Speaker 1:You can rewatch them over and over and over. We got to do something with our thumbs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it really does genuinely help us, you guys, if you like, subscribe, share.
Speaker 1:It helps.
Speaker 2:The only reason why we're doing this is to be nice. We want to get videos to those that need to see them, because I can tell you we are not making any profit whatsoever.
Speaker 2:We are way in the hole. So if you could like, subscribe, share. It really does help push that content to those that need to see it. And until next time we will see you later, stay safe, everybody, thank you. Thank you for listening to Safe, efficient, profitable a worker safety podcast. If you're looking for more in-depth discussions or step-by-step solutions on all of the different safety and regulatory topics, please visit us at wwwallensafetycoachingcom for web-based virtual coaching and training, or at wwwallensafetycom to book our team for onsite services, training sessions, to order merchandise, to learn more about our team and what services we provide in the field, or just simply to request a topic for us to cover on our next podcast. If you found today's podcast helpful and would like to support our podcast further, please help us by subscribing, liking and sharing this podcast with anyone that could benefit from the information we cover here, as that helps us to continue to put out this free content. Thank you.
