Several crews from the Essex County Fire & Rescue Service rushed to the facility on 20 November 2012 after reports of a “chemical leak” at the factory, which processes the firm’s Cravendale fresh milk brand.
Arla Foods UK confirmed that there had been an incident and that an exclusion zone was set up at its Hatfield Peverel processing plant.
A spokesperson for the company told DairyReporter.com that the spill was contained but an exclusion zone was set up “due to the risk of fumes.”
“We had a spill of hydrochloric acid at our Hatfield Peverel dairy. The spill was contained within the site boundary, but due to the wind direction the railway line was closed due to the risk of fumes. No homes were evacuated,” said the spokesperson.
“The running of the site was not affected during the clean-up operation which was handled by the fire service in conjunction with the Environment Agency.”