Issue link: http://palletcentral.uberflip.com/i/860755
palletcentral.com PalletCentral • July-August 2017 13 addressed to reduce EPL exposure facing your business. Social media and legalization of marijuana are just two areas that are often overlooked. It is important to discuss with your insurance representative to ensure your business has adequate coverage. Often times, a stand-alone, dedicated employment practices policy is the way to go. Many insurance brokers have specialists in executive risk that can assist in this area. Coverage premium can vary depending on a number of factors, but the cost pales in comparison to having an employment-related issue and not having this coverage in place. With laws in the U.S. more favorable to the employee, ex-employees, and even non-hired applicants, it may be time for an insurance check-up just to be on the safe side. Steve Yelland, JFR Holdings, Inc. CUSTOMER EDUCATION: We receive numerous service calls from our end-user customers where mold has been raised as an issue. But is it really mold? More times than not, it is something else entirely. There are other naturally occurring forms of discoloration that may look like mold, but aren't biological in nature. Thus, the product is completely safe to use in an environment that is sensitive to food grade issues. These discolorations could include iron stain, blue stain, brown stain, sun exposure, enzymatic discolorations and mineral discolorations. Mold is a concern for some end-user food-grade customers and occasionally customers who are very particular about the appearance of wood packaging for the shipping of their product. While most wood packaging suppliers use preventative measures for limiting the potential for mold, once the wood packaging leaves our facility, we begin to lose control over using preventative procedures to prevent mold on the finished packaging. Our best practice to prevent mold at this time is customer education. Our primary points of contact, i.e. purchasing agents, facilities coordinators or corporate buyers, typically aren't the people handling wooden packaging at their respective locations. It's imperative that our account personnel stress the importance of a team approach to inform all handlers of the wood packaging about mold, material choices and especially the storage conditions after receiving the finished goods on-site. The recommendations you make can be relatively simple, but can also be the difference in mold prevention, and in identifying if it's really mold or is it something else. A naturally occurring discoloration, like stain, is safe to end users. When educating our customers on understanding what is mold or stain, and on mold prevention, we find fewer customer service calls requiring the need to trouble shoot causes and concerns in regards to mold. The key to success is communication. PC