[Death in the Bread Factory]① The Core of the SPC Accident... Not Even a Chance to Stop

Emergency Stop Buttons Out of Place
and Neglected Machinery

The deceased at the SPC Group factory had no chance for survival, not even a final one. At the sites where three fatal accidents occurred due to workers being caught in machinery, there were no emergency stop buttons in place where workers could press them immediately in an emergency. SPC was so negligent in site management that it did not even know when or where the dangerous machines in its factories were manufactured.

SPC Headquarters, Seocho-gu, Seoul. Photo by Jin-Hyung Kang

According to an Asia Economy report compiled on September 11, there was no emergency stop button at the lower part of the "spiral cooling conveyor" where a fatal machinery entrapment accident occurred at the SPC Samlip factory in Siheung, Gyeonggi Province, on May 19. A police official stated, "There was no emergency stop button at the lower part of the machine, where the worker died, and instead it was located on a control box away from the accident site. It was only after a colleague witnessed the accident that the emergency stop button was pressed on the control panel."

Fatal entrapment accidents caused by unstoppable machinery occurred in the same way at two other SPC factories. In October 2022, at the SPL factory in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, where a fatal accident occurred, the emergency stop button on the "sauce mixer" was located more than one meter away from the operator. On August 8, 2023, at the Shani factory in Seongnam, the emergency stop button for the "dough lift" was behind a pillar and out of the victim's line of sight. According to Article 88 of the Rules on Occupational Safety and Health Standards, employers are required to install machine power cut-off devices where workers can press them without having to move from their working positions.

SPC's machine management was negligent. According to data obtained by Asia Economy through the office of Assemblyman Kim Taeseon from the Democratic Party of Korea, SPC was unable to identify the manufacturer, purchaser, or manufacturing date of the spiral cooling conveyor, which was introduced to the factory production line in 1995 and has been in operation for 30 years. This fatal accident occurred when the automatic lubrication device of a machine with an unknown age malfunctioned.

The issue of poor management had been pointed out before, but no improvements were made, leading to repeated accidents. At the time of the fatal accident involving the sauce mixer, SPL did not know the basic information about the machine. According to the first trial verdict regarding former SPL CEO Kang Dongseok's violation of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act, the maintenance team responsible for managing SPL factory machines told the police, "The time of arrival cannot be confirmed, but it is presumed to have arrived before 2015. In March 2019, after having the machine repaired by an external company, it was placed on the production line."

SPC stated, "The cause of the accident is currently under investigation by the police and relevant authorities (the labor office), and will be clarified through the results of the investigation. The equipment involved in the accident in May has been completely dismantled and discarded, and has been replaced with an overhead conveyor suspended from the ceiling to structurally reduce hazards. All seven similar pieces of equipment with the same structure will be sequentially replaced by June next year."

More details about SPC's machinery entrapment accidents can be found in Asia Economy's Visual News.
https://www.asiae.co.kr/en/visual-news/article/2025091015165318961