Ontario poultry workers who catch and load birds for market have a new workplace safety tool at their disposal.
Traditionally, empty shipping crates have been used as makeshift steps between a barn and a loading platform. This creates a safety hazard for catching crews when the crates became wet or icy, and results in increased crate damage.
There was no commercially available alternative, so the Poultry Service Association (PSA) turned to Growing Forward 2 to help find a solution to this challenge.
In conjunction with four commercial poultry catching companies, PSA designed, engineered, fabricated and field-tested a portable, durable, and safe step to be used in place of the empty poultry crates.