Kellogg Fined $510,000: When the System Exists but the Workface Does Not Hear It

On 19 Sep 25, Kellogg (Aust.) Pty Ltd was convicted in the Industrial Court of New South Wales and fined $510,000 after two workers fell approximately four metres from an elevated work platform at its Banksmeadow manufacturing site. SafeWork NSW reported the prosecution publicly on 23 Sep 25, confirming that the incident occurred on 03 Mar 23 when a truck reversed into a loading dock and struck the EWP with both workers inside.

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The two injured workers, Mr Bassam Ghosn and Mr Hojin Lee, were repairing a damaged bracket above a roller door at loading dock 7 as part of air curtain installation works. Mr Ghosn suffered pelvic and vertebral fractures requiring surgery and extended rehabilitation, while Mr Lee suffered a fractured left hand and was unable to work for around four months.

Kellogg pleaded guilty to a Category 2 offence under s 32 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW), for failing to comply with its primary duty under s 19(1) and exposing the workers to a risk of death or serious injury. The Court imposed a fine of $510,000 after reducing the otherwise appropriate fine of $680,000 by 25 per cent for the early guilty plea.

This case is not a neat little story about a small operator with no systems and no idea. Kellogg had risk registers, procedures, inductions, contractor systems, permit processes, JRAWMS documents, safe work instructions, traffic management arrangements, and a long-standing contractor relationship with Chess Engineering, which had performed engineering works at the site for about 40 years without any serious safety incidents.

That is exactly why the case matters. The failure was not that the business had never heard of safety management, the failure was that the controls did not operate at the actual point where a truck, a loading dock, a roller door, an EWP, contractors, security, and site supervision intersected.

What happened

Kellogg engaged Chess Engineering to replace and install air curtains above the roller doors at loading docks 4 to 8. The loading docks remained operational during the works, although the Court recorded that the dock safety indicator lights had not been working for some time, and that truck drivers had on occasion used the external buttons to open roller doors, contrary to Kellogg’s own Safe Work Instruction.

On the morning of 03 Mar 23, Mr Ghosn and Mr Lee began repairing bracing above loading dock 7. Their EWP was positioned on the raised platform at loading dock 6 and protruded into loading dock 7, while the roller door at dock 7 was closed but not isolated.

At about 0730h, a casual truck driver, Mr Chanpreet Singh, arrived at the site and completed a Driver Declaration Form. Security guards spoke with a forklift operator, were told the loading docks were empty, and advised Mr Singh accordingly, after which he drove to the loading dock area unsupervised.

Mr Singh saw that the roller door was closed, saw no signs or barricades, then used the external control panel to open the roller door to loading dock 7. He returned to the truck, reversed into the dock, struck the EWP, and the two workers were thrown from the platform, falling approximately four metres to the ground at loading dock 6.

The root cause

The root cause was a failure to control the interface between contractor work at height and operational vehicle movements in an active loading dock. This was not simply an EWP incident, a truck incident, a contractor incident, or a permit incident, it was a coordination failure across the exact interfaces that a functioning WHS system is meant to control.

Kellogg’s risk register identified relevant hazards including working from heights, visitors on site, heavy vehicle movements, capital work projects and EWP use. It identified controls including pre-work safety, work planning and consultation with impacted parties, but the Court recorded that those controls were not implemented on the day of the incident.

The Job Risk Assessment Work Method Statement (JRAWMS) required the loading dock area to be closed and barricaded, and required the roller doors to be isolated between 01 Mar 23 and 03 Mar 23. The Court recorded that these measures were not implemented on the day of the incident, which is fairly poor timing unless the preferred control measure was “hope the semi sees the invisible exclusion zone”.

The Safe Work Instruction for unloading trucks said only trained and assigned persons were to operate the loading dock roller doors and required trucks to be ushered into a dock in the presence of a forklift operator. The Court recorded that this instruction was not provided to Mr Singh and its requirements were not met on the day.

The failures

The first failure was access control. Kellogg accepted that it could have prevented unauthorised access to the loading dock and prevented use of the external control panel buttons, and the Court found it was plainly within Kellogg’s control to do so.

The second failure was traffic management. Kellogg accepted that it could have developed, implemented and enforced an adequate traffic management plan for the works, including responsibilities for managing traffic flow, procedures for controlling traffic and mobile plant movement, spotters, barriers, exclusion zones, and signage to separate pedestrians and vehicles.

The third failure was site-specific communication. The Driver Declaration Form did not tell drivers who was permitted to activate the external loading dock controls, and Mr Singh was not otherwise provided with site instructions beyond that form.

The fourth failure was supervision. The Court recorded that Mr Hollis, Chess’s supervisor, had left the site at about 0700h, that no replacement had been appointed, that Kellogg’s relevant senior personnel were not present, and that the injured workers and Mr Singh were unsupervised at the relevant time.

The fifth failure was contractor and visitor control. Kellogg’s risk register required visitors to be accompanied by a Kellogg staff member, but Mr Singh accessed the site unsupervised after completing the Driver Declaration Form, and nobody from Kellogg, Chess or Ignite told him that work was being performed in the loading dock.

Shared duties and contractor reliance

Kellogg argued that Chess had contributed to the risk, and the Court accepted that Chess’s failings contributed to how the risk materialised. The Court also accepted that Kellogg’s reliance on Chess needed to be viewed in the context of a 40-year working relationship and previous days where supervision, barricades and spotters had been in place.

That did not remove Kellogg’s duty. The Court cited authority confirming that another entity’s contribution to a safety risk may be relevant to penalty, but it does not diminish the statutory obligations placed on the defendant.

That is the shared duty lesson. A host site, contractor, labour hire provider, subcontractor, security provider and transport operator can all be involved in the same work environment, and the presence of one duty holder does not dissolve the duty of another. The practical question is always who had capacity to influence or control the matter, and what did they actually do with that capacity.

For Kellogg, the answer was clear enough. As controller of the site, Kellogg had responsibility for its traffic management plan, contractor and worker training in site-specific hazards, and appropriate supervision in relation to the air curtain project.

The legal lesson

The Court found the objective seriousness of the offence fell within the mid-range. In reaching that view, the Court considered the obvious and foreseeable risk of contact between a truck and people working in the loading dock, the failure to prevent access to the dock during the works, failures in training, instruction and supervision, the straightforward nature of the available controls, and the potential for death or very significant injury.

The Court also rejected the idea that this was just an unfortunate coincidence of unrelated one-off failures. It noted that the safety indicator lights had not recently failed, and there was a history of truck drivers sometimes operating the loading dock controls, contrary to Kellogg’s own unloading truck procedure.

That is an important prosecution point. Once a business knows that a control is not working, or that workers and visitors are drifting around the intended system, the issue stops being theoretical. It becomes evidence of state of knowledge, foreseeability, and an opportunity to intervene before the incident does the intervening.

The Court accepted that Kellogg had extensive safety systems and was intent on maintaining safe systems of work. The predominant failure, however, was Kellogg’s lack of compliance with its well-documented safety systems.

What Kellogg did after the incident

After the incident, Kellogg updated SWMS, JRAWMS and related material for the air curtain project and EWP retrieval, conducted toolbox talks covering work at height, loading dock roller door isolation, barricading and fencing, and engaged Two Way Cranes to recover the EWP using a lift plan.

Kellogg also removed the external roller door controls, moved motor isolators to ground level, increased the prominence of barriers in the loading area, required project managers to review and approve SWMS documents, trained engineers and remedial painting contractors in EWP use, trained warehouse workers in loading dock access prevention and exclusion zones, developed a new loading and unloading SOP, and reviewed permits, unloading truck procedures and contractor management policies.

Those changes tell you exactly where the incident lived. The problem was not a mysterious technical failure buried inside a machine, it was a practical failure of isolation, access control, supervision, traffic management, contractor communication, and implementation.

Lessons for industry

The first lesson is that loading docks are not passive spaces. They are active traffic interfaces where trucks, forklifts, pedestrians, contractors, roller doors, dock controls and scheduling decisions meet, and a control failure in that environment can shift from routine to catastrophic in seconds.

The second lesson is that closed does not mean isolated. A roller door being closed did not stop the truck driver from opening it from outside the building, and the Court recorded that the external controls were accessible and had been used by drivers before.

The third lesson is that contractor work cannot be safely managed through a form at the gate. A Driver Declaration Form that does not tell the driver who may operate roller doors, where work is occurring, where exclusion zones apply, and who controls traffic movement is not site-specific control. It is admin wearing a hi-vis vest.

The fourth lesson is that indicators, barricades and spotters need to exist on the day the work is done. The Court accepted that barricades and warning markers had been used on previous days, but they were absent on the morning of the incident, and the loading dock safety indicator lights had not been working for some time.

The fifth lesson is that established safety systems still need field verification. Kellogg had a documented safety system, but the Court found the incident was enabled by several independent safety system failures and could have been prevented by straightforward controls that did not involve great burden or inconvenience.

The Safety Jon view

This case should make any large organisation uncomfortable, particularly the ones with polished safety frameworks, contractor portals, risk registers, permit systems, corporate safety slogans, and a monthly dashboard that turns everything green unless someone has the audacity to be injured.

Kellogg was not punished because it had no safety system. Kellogg was punished because its safety system did not control the live risk at the loading dock on 03 Mar 23.

The workers were elevated four metres in an EWP, performing contractor work in an operational loading dock, while a truck driver was allowed to access the area unsupervised, open the roller door from outside, and reverse into the dock without knowing workers were inside the work zone. That is not a paperwork problem, it is a control failure with paperwork attached.

The real lesson is blunt. If your system depends on everyone remembering the rule, reading the right document, telling the right person, placing the tape, checking the light, supervising the visitor, isolating the door, and replacing the spotter, then the system needs a hard look before the incident gives it one.

A safe system of work is not proven by how much documentation exists. It is proven when the truck cannot enter the dock, the roller door cannot be opened by the wrong person, the contractor cannot work unprotected in a vehicle path, and the supervisor can see that the controls are actually in place before the work starts.

That is the difference between safety as written and safety as controlled. One looks good in the folder, the other stops the EWP being hit.

Stay safe!