The June death of a Perryville plant worker has drawn new attention to Gilster-Mary Lee’s history of federal safety violations.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) confirmed it is investigating the June 26 accident at the company’s cereal plant on Old St. Marys Road, where 38-year-old Nicolas Lopez Gomez was found dead inside an industrial oven. The agency has not yet released its findings, but past records show the company has been cited repeatedly for serious workplace safety violations.
In the last two decades, OSHA inspections at Gilster plants in Missouri and Illinois have documented multiple injuries and fatalities, ranging from amputations to falls and engulfments in storage tanks. A significant number of these cases involved failures to follow “lockout/tagout” rules — a procedure designed to ensure machines are powered down and cannot be restarted during maintenance or cleaning. Without those safeguards, maintenance workers are often in direct contact with dangerous moving parts.
Among the cases:
■ In September 2024, an employee at the Perryville plant lost an arm while replacing a part on a piece of equipment. OSHA cited the company for repeat lockout/ tagout violations and initially issued penalties of more than $80,000 before they were negotiated down to $20,000.
■ In June 2019, a worker at another plant lost four fingers after his hand was caught in a twin-screw cooker, one of several amputation cases OSHA has tied to the company.
■ Earlier incidents include a 2008 death when an employee was engulfed by graham flour in a storage tank, a 2009 fatal fall through an unprotected floor opening during maintenance work, and a 2011 dust explosion in Steeleville, Ill,, that left two workers severely burned.
Altogether, Gilster-Mary Lee has faced fines in numerous OSHA cases, totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. The company has also been placed in OSHA’s Severe Violator Enforcement Program, which targets employers with repeated or willful safety failures and subjects them to increased monitoring.
The outcome of OSHA’s current investigation into the Perryville oven fatality will determine whether the company faces new penalties — and whether the case escalates beyond civil fines. OSHA could impose higher fines if investigators determine the same violations have continued.
Founded in 1895 and based in Chester, Gilster-Mary Lee is one of the region’s largest private-label food manufacturers. The company operates multiple plants across Illinois and Missouri, employing more than 2,000 workers. Its product line includes breakfast cereals, cake and baking mixes, pasta, dinner kits and other packaged foods, as well as packaging materials.
