Chemical safety: sounds straightforward, right? You’ve got your SDS, PPE, and eyewash stations. But what happens when your team mixes, sprays, or supercharges those chemicals in ways the manufacturer never imagined? With a CHMM on the mic, this is part coaching, part humor, and 100% actionable.

Key Takeaways –

1. The SDS might not be helpful based on how youre using the chemical.

• Reality check: Most Safety Data Sheets are written based on lab conditions and "intended use"—not how your sanitation team might be using them.
• Pro Tip: Ask yourself, “Was this SDS written by someone who’s ever worn PPE, on a harvest room floor, at 2 AM?” Maybe not.

2. Exposure Limits Are Great—If You Can Measure Them

• Common failure: SDS says “use respirator if above X ppm.” Great. Now… how are you measuring ppm in your facility?
• Real examples:
  • No meter for that specific chemical
  • Using outdated Dräger tubes that are non-specific

3. “More Isn’t Better”

• Scenario: You double the chemical strength during deep cleaning due to finding some "buggies." Now your PPE, risk profile, engineering controls—all need to change. Did they?
• Surprise consequences:
• Equipment degradation because the stronger solution wasn’t considered $$$
• PPE may not be adequate for the levels used

4. Training Misses the Human Factor

• You’ve trained on:
  • Where the SDS is
  • How to handle and/or mix
  • Which PPE to wear
• But you forgot to train on:
  • What happens when the goggles fog up
  • That instinctive move to scratch your eye with a gloved hand
  • Spraying above your head and having chemical rain down your back

5. Eyewash Stations: Functional on First Shift, ???? On Off Shifts

• Classic issue: “We check them every Monday at 9 AM.” But chemical use spikes on nights, weekends, and during deep cleans
• Also overlooked:
  • Eyewashes with scalding hot water
  • No eyewash where non-routine chemical usage occurs

Actionable Advice :

• Revisit every chemical on-site: How is it used, applied, stored, and disposed? Does that match the SDS?
• Evaluate your meters: Can you measure the chemical levels you're basing levels of PPE on?
• Update PPE assessments based on how chemicals are used
• Retrain your teams with realistic, scenario-based walk-throughs
• Audit all eyewash stations across all shifts, all departments, and all rarely used rooms

Final Words from Joe & Jen:

• We’re not saying you have these problems. We’re saying we’ve seen them—a lot.
• These gaps sneak in when paperwork replaces field observations.
• If you need help identifying these gaps, we do onsite audits, coaching, and training at AllenSafety.com and AllenSafetyCoaching.com.

SEO Keywords:

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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.

Allen Safety takes a deep dive into SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) reviews, the blurry overlap of responsibility between teams, and why most documentation isn’t as airtight—or as collaborative—as it should be. The hosts challenge listeners to reconsider how procedures are developed, who reviews them, and how safety personnel can truly become competent stakeholders in the systems they’re expected to sign off on.

This is more than just a compliance checkbox conversation—it’s a real-world, boots-on-the-ground look at the messy middle of safety documentation, with clear, tactical solutions for bridging the gaps.

Your SOPs Might Be a Frankenstein of Mismatched Formats
SOPs are often written by third parties, recycled from other plants, or poorly updated.

Reviewers Don’t Always Know What They’re Looking For
Reviewers are often engineers or refrigeration/maintenance techs, not safety experts.

Emergency Procedures are Too Generic
SOPs frequently assume “perfect world” conditions.

Safety Needs a Seat at the Table—Early
SOPs, task procedures, PPE assessments, and LOTO protocols must all align—and often, they don’t.

Task Procedures Without Collaboration = Injuries Waiting to Happen
If safety writes procedures without consulting maintenance—or vice versa—hazards will be missed.

The Fix: Cross-Discipline Collaboration + Job Shadowing
Build SOPs and task procedures in multi-disciplinary teams—safety, engineering, maintenance in the same room.

History Matters: Use Veteran Operators as Historians
New team? High turnover? Nobody remembers the last snowstorm or failure event?

Don’t Forget Environmental Compliance (RMP)
RMP (Risk Management Plans) are increasingly under scrutiny.

Final Thoughts & Call to Action:
If you’re managing safety, you’re not just pushing paper—you’re writing the playbook for survival. And that means getting out of the silo, out of the office, and into the field with your engineering and maintenance teams. Safety, SOPs, and real operations need to speak the same language—or someone gets hurt.

Want help?
Allen Safety offers:

Onsite PSM audits & compliance coaching
Safety-PSM joint training
Online access to over 100 commercial-free training episodes
Unlimited email coaching with the team

Visit AllenSafety.com or AllenSafetyCoaching.com to learn more.
Process Safety & Compliance
Process Safety Management (PSM)

OSHA PSM compliance
EPA RMP (Risk Management Plan)
Mechanical integrity
PSM documentation review
PSM audit best practices
Process Hazard Analysis (PHA)
Emergency shutdown procedures