Regardless of the warehousing scheme or sophistication of a distilled spirits operation, handling, moving, and transporting distilled spirits barrels remains one of the most dangerous tasks for staff at a distilled spirits plant. The DISCUS Safety & Risk Management Committee recently published Barrel Handling Safety Best Practices, a guide with the purpose of sharing best practices and strategies for safely handling the standard 53-gallon barrel around distillery premises. The guide outlines detailed best practices covering loading and unloading full and empty barrels; how to handle barrels in racked and palletized barrel warehouse systems; barrel handling during filling and emptying; how to identify and safely fix common barrel cooperage issues; and the importance of employee safety training.

This course provides an overview of the DISCUS barrel handling best practices guide, details how the guide can be utilized to help safeguard your operations and employees, showcases instructional videos, and shares insights from DISCUS Safety & Risk Management Committee members and their Health & Safety teams.

Learning Outcomes:
1. Preview the insights found in the DISCUS Barrel Handling Safety Best Practices guide, including why it’s important, what topics it covers, and how to best use it to safeguard your operations and distillery team
2. Explore items of particular importance from the guide with personal examples from expert speakers