2 Towns Ciderhouse

Given its tap room location on a major thoroughfare near Corvallis and its constant presence in the “craft” section of grocery stores across the country, you might be hard-pressed to find someone who isn’t familiar with 2 Towns Ciderhouse.

What people are less familiar with are the production operations. 2 Towns produces and packages their beverages in neighboring buildings in the southernmost industrial part of town. Inside there are many employees with a variety of jobs, from cleaning and moving kegs to quality testing to packaging.

Jobs like these could be at high risk for injuries: they involve tasks like repeatedly lifting heavy items and working with pressurized systems.

But among the employees doing this work, there are also many tools and machines meant to reduce the physical and mental loads that can often lead to on-the-job injuries. The company employs keg lifters in some departments, so employees don’t have to repeatedly lift full kegs of cider, which could weigh 165 pounds. An electric pallet jack makes it so employees don’t have to manually lift and move heavy pallets of product.

“The keg lifter we received through the Employer-at-Injury program has not only made our direct to consumer drivers’ lives easier, but also our taproom employees now have an extremely safe way to load kegs into customer vehicles,” says 2 Towns Safety Coordinator Jeff Boyd.

The blossoming safety culture at 2 Towns Ciderhouse began at the leadership level, says Boyd. The automated processes and machinery enhancements are thanks to leadership’s commitment to safety and a very engaged and supportive executive team.

Boyd, a self-described “butcher from Philly,” had quite the storied journey before he started at 2 Towns. After adventures in the northeast, Arizona, and Idaho, Boyd took a packaging role at the cider company in 2022. In 2023, he moved to the safety coordinator job and became responsible for making sure employees are safe while they work. Sometimes that involves getting them the right personal protective equipment. Sometimes it means finding new tools to remove risks. All the time it means listening to the workers and understanding their everyday tasks.

When Boyd stepped in as safety coordinator, he got to work with SAIF Senior Safety Management Consultant Michael Price.

“I appreciate his motivation to improve their safety culture and create a sustainable safety program. He updated several of their policies and training procedures over the past couple years and he does an excellent job leading by example,” Price says.

Boyd, with support from leadership, has taken a holistic approach to building a culture of safety, including automating packing and stacking, finding opportunities for the company to invest in workplace safety, and improving accident and incident assessment procedures.