OSHA cites Piggly Wiggly, reminder for Big Lots on lockout safety
A Piggly Wiggly worker lost four fingers to a grinder restart. For Big Lots, it is a blunt warning about lockout lapses in stockrooms and back rooms.
A worker lost four fingers after a commercial grinder kicked on during cleaning at a Bowden, Georgia, Piggly Wiggly. OSHA said the employee had been told to clean the machine on Jan. 29, 2026, when a co-worker stepped on the foot-control pedal, started the grinder and pulled the worker’s hand into the equipment.
OSHA cited RBG Foods Inc., operating as Piggly Wiggly, for willful and serious violations in a June 1 release. The agency said the case and any penalty amount were not final, a reminder that the headline can still change even after a severe injury has already happened.
The facts read like a grocery-store case, but the hazard is broader than a meat department. Retail back rooms are full of equipment that can bite when cleaning and maintenance get rushed: compactors, pallet jacks, floor machines and other gear with moving parts or foot controls. OSHA’s lockout/tagout standard, 29 CFR 1910.147, requires procedures that disable machines and prevent unexpected energization or start-up during servicing and maintenance.
That is the part Big Lots workers should read closely. Big Lots and its subsidiaries filed voluntary Chapter 11 petitions on Sept. 9, 2024, in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, and the company has continued operating under court supervision as closures and liquidation activity have expanded. In that kind of pressure cooker, back-room shortcuts can start to look normal: a quick cleanup before a truck arrives, a jam cleared without shutting something down, a machine restarted before everyone is clear.
OSHA says workers have the right to a safe workplace, training in a language they understand, and protection from retaliation when they report hazards. For a store associate, that means the instruction to slow down is not abstract. If a compactor, pallet jack, floor machine or other piece of equipment needs to be cleaned, cleared or serviced, it needs to be made safe first. The Piggly Wiggly case shows what happens when that step is treated as optional, and why Big Lots’ own back rooms cannot afford the same mistake.
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
Did this article answer your question?
