Steve Coldrick, the Director of Disease Reduction at HSE, said that some 27,000 of the industries 100,000 worker are potentially exposed to this risk. "Flour might seem harmless compared with chemicals used in other industries, but the truth is that unless it is handled correctly it can lead to serious health problems," he said, "By using the correct equipment and making simple changed to working procedures this is preventable."

Some of the measures that workers should employ include using sprinklers rather than hand-throwing flour, reducing dust clouds by not throwing from height and clearing spillages immediately.