Scalding - Boughton's Coffee House

After the explosion – theimplications are immenseFor the high-street hot beverage trade, the first effect of the recent explo -sion of an espresso machine in a coffee bar is that the health and safetyspotlight will be on the trade as never before, and every cafe operator willbe forced to look to their safety and machine-maintenance procedures.The general trade reaction has been that although the recent accident wasa very rare event, it reinforces what machine suppliers always preach aboutmaintenance, and several machine companies have now said that theyhave been warning the hospitality trade for a long time about the legalrequirement for espresso machine care.The national news media took greatinterest in the story of an espressomachine which exploded in aSainsburys café in Farnham, sending17 people to hospital.The BBC was the first to identify themachine in question as an Elektra, andquoted Sainsburys as saying that adesign change was probably behind afault with the relief valve. Sainsburysadded: "thirty-two of our stores havethe new design and these machineswill remain out of service; the environ -mental health officer has agreed thatthe machines in the remaining 126stores, which are of the originaldesign, are safe to use and can bebrought back into service."Meanwhile, suppliers and mainte -nance organisations all said that theincident should remind all beverageoperators of the nature of espressomachines. The immediate formalreaction has of course been to refercafe-owners to the pressure-vesselregulations, but the fact is that theseare not straightforward."The accident has massive implica -tions for the industry - every singlecaterer or retailer with an espressomachine should now expect their localH&S inspector to have them very highon their hit list," said Duncan Gaffneyof Coffeetech, a company extremelywell-known for its experience inespresso machine technology. As withseveral other companies, Coffeetechwarned café owners not to take shortcuts on the matter, and to be verycareful about how their inspections aredone – it is widely suggested that notall those who offer inspection servicesare qualified to do so. Specifically, acafe operator’s normal espresso engineermay not be allowed to inspectand certify the machine."Parts of the appropriate Act areambiguous,” says Gaffney. “This istrue of the requirement to have testsand assessments carried out by a'competent person' - the Act itself doesnot define the necessary qualificationsof a 'competent person'. However,The Health & Safety Executive's ownApproved Code of Practice is explicitin doing so."I emphasise this because there ismuch confusion in the market. We see“Every single catererwith an espressomachine should nowexpect their localH&S inspector tohave them very highon their hit list”- Duncan Gaffneyvarious companies and some veryexperienced self-employed engineerspromoting boiler inspection and main -tenance services. But do they satisfythe qualification criteria, and are theysuitably independent? In most casesthe answer is 'no'.“And any user or owner of espressomachines is taking one hell of risk byusing inspection services provided bya company that is operating outside ofthe HSE's Approved Code of Practice.”To illustrate the situation, Coffeetechitself applied to be an inspector - and,quite correctly, was turned down."We must certainly rank as one ofthe most experienced specialists inthis field. We asked the HSE if wemight be assessed for providinginspection services, based on ourprovable and documented competencyand experience.“Their answer was unambiguous -even with our qualifications and expe -rience, it would not be possible for usto inspect and certify, due to the potentialconflict of interest that would existbetween being both the maintainerand safety inspector of the samemachine!"(Coffeetech actually subcontracts aqualified independent inspector - but,says the company, this just shows theaverage café owner that they must besure about who does what work).At Fracino, Adrian Maxwell addedthat café owners should be very care -ful of their documentation - becausesome of the authorities who are sup -posed to enforce the rules "seem to bevery slack… probably due to igno -rance of the equipment."And this magazine can also reportthat one very big insurance companywas at first inspired by the accident toproduce a guide on the matter forcaterers… but then decided it was toorisky to put its name to anything in writing,and scrapped the whole idea.4