Eviosys is now part of Sonoco
Safety is the first consideration at all our sites. We strive to attain the highest possible safety standards for our employees, our contractors, our customers and their products, and to guarantee the food safety of consumers.
Eviosys’ “Safety First” values and culture embody the care and the measures we take to ensure a secure environment
for our people.
Safety of our People
We use the standard safety indicator Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR) to measure safety performance at our sites. The TRIR covers all incidents, medically-assisted events, and restricted cases at all our facilities. Our 2023 objective is to reach the lowest realistic TRIR of 0.8, an acknowledged level of safety excellence within our industry. In 2023, we attained a TRIR of 0.9, an improvement of 18% from the TRIR of 1.1 we reported in 2021.
Plant safety is an imperative at Eviosys. All operational meetings begin with “Safety First.” To ensure ongoing safety improvement at our sites, we review all safety incidents, including those that require first aid or lead to an absence. We analyse why each of these incidents occurred, and determine what change is required to decrease the likelihood of such an incident being repeated. This may entail making changes to physical working conditions, altering processes, or addressing any other relevant issue at the site. We also aim to analyse and understand “near misses” in order to identify hazards that might be addressed to avoid future incidents or potential danger. We have worked to bring about a culture of safety awareness and participation among workers. To that end, there is a board in all plants where workers can write notes on any hazards they have identified on the plant floor.
2023 Activities and Achievements
Highlights of our Health and Safety investments, enhancements, and local initiatives in 2023 include:
• Gotcha is a program for reducing on-the-job injury by modernising security and safety systems. Eviosys has allocated €9m to this program over three years. Gotcha begins with a method for analysing and assessing risk, as it relates to all the accesses a worker has on a production line. We measure the different parts of a production line to identify precisely places where there is the potential for physical harm. The objective is to put protections in place to minimise the potential for physical injury along the production line. This is accomplished by placing safety gates along the line in the form of curtains of light, infrared signals to stop machines, and more conventional locking gates or doors.

In addition to the TRIR indicator, we measure numerous aspects of workplace health and safety through nine other KPIs. We track our progress in a monthly Health and Safety Report, and measure the progress of each of our plants o their health and safety initiatives and achievements in a Quarterly Scorecard. Additionally, each plant is required to conduct a monthly health initiative, which can range from a smoking cessation program, to a sporting event, to a session on mental health.
Lock-Out, Tag-Out (LOTO) is a protection against unintentional exposure to hazardous energy from machinery or equipment. The program has now been fully implemented. It is a method for turning off all sources of energy flowing to machines. It is personalised for each worker or person working on a production line, granting him or her the control to turn off (and turn back on) power along the line in the event of an emergency, or as required by circumstances in order to avoid harm.
Some local Health and Safety initiatives carried out during the year include:
• Health, Safety, and Sustainability Week at our Murcia, Spain plant (Eviosys’ largest facility), organised and carried out to instil our values of corporate safety in workers, and to share our sustainability goals. Presentations and engaging activities covered topics of industrial safety measures such as the use of fire extinguishers, rescue work at heights, safety protocols in confined spaces, and the impact of using hearing protectors.
• Installation of a pedestrian traffic light in our Alcochete, Portugal facility for safer worker crossing at certain points in the plant where forklifts circulate. This has now been adopted as a best practice, to be implemented across all Eviosys plants.
• Safety Champion of the quarter initiative at our plant in Newcastle, UK with the introduction of a new reward scheme for factory staff who show an active and outstanding commitment to safety.
• Contract with a local private medical center within the industrial area of our Thessaloniki, Greece plant. The agreement provides for immediate first aid and medical treatment on our premises for employees, visitors, and subcontractors. It also provides for ambulance transport to the medical center’s facilities if required.
• Eviosys began to address the area of mental health at its work sites — a pioneering activity in the manufacturing industry — three years ago. Mental health awareness and related activities are most prevalent at our locations in the UK, and are slowly spreading to our facilities in other countries such as Nantes, France and Murcia, Spain. As an example of one of our activities, in 2023 an internationally recognised training course, Mental Health First Aid (MHFA), was offered at our Wantage, UK location. The course is designed to train people to spot the signs and symptoms of mental health issues and to provide help on a first aid basis. Training is a crucial component of our Health & Safety program, and is a constant across all of our sites. Upon joining our company, all employees are required to watch a video outlining the priorities and processes that bring our Safety First culture to life. Additionally, employees at our various sites have access to numerous training activities across many health awareness subjects. Some examples of health training topics in 2023 include creating healthy habits at our La Rioja, Spain plant; a Health and Safety Day in Aprilia, Italy; accident awareness at Alcochete, Portugal; and defibrillator and first aid training at several sites.
Action plan for the Future
We will continue to emphasize the vigilance and activities outlined above that are contributing to the improvement in our TRIR indicator, and that instill Safety First values and culture in our employees. We strive to achieve zero
incidents. Our goals are to exceed the industry standard of safety excellence, create a safe working environment for our workers, and provide them access to tools and knowledge that lead to healthier lives.