Advancing Winery Safety

Advancing Winery Safety

Advancing Winery Safety. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

On Friday we told you that the Washington Wine Industry Foundation recently received a $174,000 grant to develop safety education for small to mid-sized wineries. THe grant was funded by the State of Washington, Department of Labor and Industries, Safety and Health Investment Projects (SHIP) Program. Executive Director, Vicky Scharlau says they have a year to complete this task.

SCHARLAU: The great part about this is that while we have a year to complete the grant what we will end up with at the end of that year are various tools that we will have pre-identified as being useful to employees, full and part-time employees in small wineries. Because most of the 750 wineries we have in Washington State have less than 20 employees and many of them don’t have the resources - either in resources for having specific staff that would be responsible for training or resources just in the size of the company. But that doesn’t negate the fact that there are in fact hazards in wineries that people just need to be fully aware of.

The grant will also establish a focus group from the Washington wine industry to provide input on safety training needs and workable solutions.

SCHARLAU: Luckily we have people who have worked in the wine industry for decades so they already have a pretty good understanding and knowledge base of what the needs are, especially from inside the winery.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network. 

Previous ReportWine Industry Grant
Next ReportIdaho Cherry Troubles