Confectionery Production

Confectionery Production. This concept encompasses a range of productions for making sweet food products: cakes, pastries, biscuits, gingerbread, marmalade, fruit paste, various candies, chocolate, etc. The scale of confectionery production is extremely diverse: from small artisanal operations (often at bakeries) to large factories with hundreds and thousands of workers. - The occupational hazards of confectionery production have been studied very little to this day. In both Western European and Russian literature, confectionery production is not described separately, but together with bakery production. Similarly, data on morbidity, injury rates, and mortality of confectioners are almost everywhere presented not separately, but together with data for bakers. The main occupational hazards of all branches of confectionery production are: physical strain of work, high temperature and exposure to radiant energy, sugar dust; for the numerous group of candy wrappers, a characteristic sitting bent posture and rapid, uniform small movements of the fingers of both hands are typical. - Exposure to high temperature, mostly combined with radiant energy, affects a large number of basic professions: cooks of various masses, candy mass rollers, workers at ovens (biscuits, gingerbread, etc.); even candy wrappers work at somewhat elevated temperatures (from not yet cooled candies). Workers at ovens, as well as workers handling various heated liquids and hot masses (hot milk, sugar syrups, glaze), are often subjected to burns, sometimes of quite severe form. "Very often when pouring or splashing hot mass, contact with hot forms, evaporation of steam from hot pots, first and second degree burns occur on the hands, face and chest. Most often, burns affect the left hand and forearm. Confectioners who pour their products with hot sugar syrup in various ways using metal and paper funnels receive frequent burns during these manipulations, up to blister formation" (Ullmann). At the 1st State Leningrad factory with 1,150 workers in 1926, there were 549 accidents, of which 88 resulted in loss of working capacity; 30% of all cases were burns (Donders). The second main occupational hazard of confectionery production is sugar dust, which, in addition to irritating the respiratory tract, also has a destructive effect on teeth, causing so-called bakers' caries. Sugar dust settles on the free surface of teeth and, due to the action of bacteria contained in the oral cavity (where acid-formers predominate), turns into sugar, acetic, and lactic acids; these acids, dissolving the inorganic components of the tooth (carbonate and phosphate calcium of enamel and dentin), cause exposure of dentin. Further destruction of the tooth occurs due to the action of putrefactive bacteria penetrating into the dentin. The course of this caries is quite characteristic: destruction begins at the neck of the tooth or at the edge of the gums and from there spreads along the surface over the crown of the tooth, as well as in depth (flat caries). Mainly the front teeth are affected, and specifically their labial surface. Kunert, who examined a large number of workers in industries where sugar or flour dust is emitted, believes that the main effect is exerted by sugar itself; in millers and bakers (bakeries), caries is not of particular importance, but in confectionery bakers, gingerbread makers, and workers in chocolate factories, Kunert found severe destruction of teeth: people in these professions at an average age of 25-26 years have 60% missing or carious teeth, at 40 years of age this number reaches 79%. Porta and Resé, in persons aged 20-22 years on average, found 75% healthy teeth, but among 45 confectioners of the same age, Resé found no one with completely healthy teeth. More recent data from Friedlander (1921) also confirmed that the causative factor of caries should be considered sugar dust (and not the introduction of sugar with food). Among the workers he examined in 6 industries (millers, workers at sugar beet factories, sugar refineries, chocolate factories, candy factories, confectioner-bakers), the largest number of diseased teeth was found in workers of the last 4 professions (flat caries as a percentage in persons of the above professions, in the same order: 0; 7.3; 54; 17.8; 18.1; 11.7). In confectionery workers in previous years, various skin lesions were described particularly frequently, from simple erythema to purulent processes with ulceration and development of granulomas. Attention was drawn to them as early as 1832 by Turner Thackeray; then they were described by very many authors. The causative factors of skin lesions in confectionery workers are considered to be the action of chemical acids, fruit juices, saccharin, essential oils, etc. Heller and Strauss noted a characteristic form of nail lesion in workers in the production of candied fruits; the disease begins with inflammation of the nail folds, and, passing through a series of stages, ends with the formation of an abscess involving the entire nail phalanx. - In addition to the main occupational hazards, in workers in small confectionery enterprises, social and general hygienic factors are also important: poorly maintained, poorly or not ventilated work premises, abroad - an excessively long working day, etc. On large modern enterprises, working conditions are of course incomparably better. - Data on morbidity and mortality of confectionery production workers separately from bakery workers are almost nonexistent. - Prevention: concentration of production in large enterprises, properly equipped; mechanization of production; isolation of ovens and boilers; supply-exhaust (general, and in some departments - local) ventilation; general and individual cleanliness - frequently changed special clothing, washbasins, showers, frequent mouth rinsing and tooth brushing; locker rooms, etc.; medical selection of workers and periodic medical examinations (in the USSR once a month according to the resolution of the NKT USSR of February 10, 1924, No. 108/351).