Heineken to pay £10k for procedure failures

Heineken has been ordered to pay more than £10,000 after admitting three breaches of the environmental permit for its Tadcaster Brewery site.

The beer and cider producer was fined £2,300 for failing to train staff, to maintain equipment and to notify the Environment Agency (EA) of the violations of its permit. It was also ordered to pay more than £8,000 in costs.

Speaking after the case, an EA spokesman said: “Small breaches in procedure can lead to big environmental impacts. We’re lucky on this occasion that there was no pollution, but the rules are there for a reason.”

Selby Magistrates Court heard that during August 2008 thousands of litres of beer and cider were diverted to an effluent treatment plant and an unknown amount of yeast was lost after a series of incidents at the brewery in North Yorkshire.

On one occasion the company had bypassed the plant’s electronic monitoring system, stopping faults being spotted, and on another pipework was not inspected or kept in good working order.

The third error was caused by the company failing to provide training materials or written procedures for staff on how to operate an engineering system.