D’Orsogna Ltd pleads guilty to failing to provide a safe workplace after forklift seriously injured worker

A cured meats giant is to blame after a horrific workplace injury where a female employee was seriously injured after being struck by a reversing forklift.

A female worker was struck by a forklift at D’Orsogna Ltd’s Mickleham processing facility.

A cured meats giant with a track record of providing an unsafe workplace has again been nabbed after a worker was seriously injured after being struck by a reversing forklift.

D’Orsogna Ltd pleaded guilty in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday after a worker was hit by a forklift at their multi-million dollar Mickleham plant almost two years ago.

In April 2023, a reversing forklift hit the female worker and she was seriously injured as a result, before WorkSafe laid charges in January of this year.,

The company, represented in court by chief financial officer David Ligovich, pleaded guilty to one count of failing to provide a safe working environment for its employees.

D’Orsogna opened the $66m facility at the Merrifield Business Park in Mickleham in 2019 which doubled their production volume and resulted in more than 100 jobs being created.

D’Orsogna employs 800 people nationwide, including 250 in Victoria.

D’Orsogna is one of Australia’s leading cured meats providers.

It was not the company’s first brush with the law, after it pleaded guilty in 2021 after a worker had the tips of two fingers cut off in an industrial meat slicer.

For that matter, D‘Orsogna was convicted and fined $15,000, along with costs of $1891 awarded to the prosecution.

In 2012, the Perth-based business were fined $10,000 after an employee lost part of a finger in a mincing machine.

D’Orsogna will front the Melbourne County Court on November 21.