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I burnt some toast this morning. It was a small accident; a wisp of acrid smoke, a mad dash to the smoke alarm and a quick disgorging of blackened granary bloomer into my chic bullet bin. There was no need for personal injury compensation, although mild negligence was to blame, but luckily my children decided not to sue for suffering caused by stinging eyes and the "really awful stink".
Imagine then what $4,000 worth of burning cocoa beans might smell like. Nice at first, I would hypothesise; it might appear that you are walking through hot chocolate, but then I could foresee it might turn equally acrid and perhaps even dangerous.
A recent act of negligence at a cocoa processing plant on St Helena, the tiny island territory in the Atlantic Ocean, could have caused a horrific work accident when a $400,000 cocoa polisher overheated, leaving an entire shipment of cocoa beans to go up in smoke.
An anonymous employee described the circumstance, "The polisher gradually heats and fans the beans. It is supposed to be run for three-minute intervals and then be turned off to prevent the beans from burning. That was not done."
He said that a four man team run the cocoa polisher; a machine which prepares the beans for export, but that their negligence meant that the shipment was destroyed.
And, as with any heated machinery, it could have caused a serious fire.
The worker said that the polisher has been at the plant since 1957, and required repair two years ago. The polisher is now destroyed and so cocoa beans will have to be sold from the estate, in an unprocessed state, which will mean huge financial losses.
Local fire services confirmed they attended a blaze at the plant, but would not comment further. It is believed that the Trinidad and Tobago Electric Commission will be preparing a report on the incident and until that time the plant will remain closed.
When you put heat and food substances together, you often get something wonderful as an end product; like chocolate, beer, marmalade or granary toast, but if you take your eye off it for a moment , it can have very serious consequences.
Luckily for the cocoa workers, there were no casualties and therefore no need for work accident claims from workers, but I should imagine that the bosses might have some claim against the workers who dropped the ball in the cocoa processing plant.
As for me and my toast, well the kids were happy as I had managed to cremate the last four slices of the healthy stuff and had to resort to the back-up plastic white bread that I keep in the depths of my freezer for just such emergencies.
And my kids, who normally suggest they need personal injury compensation for being made to eat a healthy breakfast, tucked into their highly processed and tasteless slices of white toast, perfectly browned at the second attempt, and only moaned very slightly when I denied them chocolate spread to complete the feast. "No," I said, "You shall eat jam or marmalade, they are fruit after all."
