Scotch Whisky has a proud record when it comes to health and safety. In fact, the Scotch Whisky Association reports the industry is performing better than “food and drinks manufacturing“ and has delivered an incredible 82% drop in incidents since 2005.
And when it comes to maturation warehouses, the growth of cask racking has largely been attributed to this increased focus on safety, with the latest directives looking at further improvements towards the traditional fabricated approach.
One of the key features that cask racking enables you to achieve is the safe access to emergency exits, required by the HSE in the event of an incident.
By incorporating elevated walkways using mesh steel panels, accessible by structural staircases, modern maturation warehouses are being designed to avoid the issues of “dead-ends” which no longer comply with the latest regulations.
Thistle Systems has been at the forefront of maturation racking development as it continually evolves its approach to improve every aspect of the solution, from cask handling to improving layout to maximise capacity as well as meeting the latest fire and building regulations.
Thistle Systems’ Managing Director, Mike Cairns, explained, “When it comes to maturation racking, our focus is on maximising capacity with a high quality solution which has been designed to meet the latest HSE requirements whilst delivering a strong ROI for our clients.“
He continued, “We have worked closely with clients in over 40 maturation racking installations and have continually taken the feedback from every project and updated the solution to improve details such as rail fixings, bracing patterns, safe walkways, rail profiles, gate design and access to casks.”