Ammonia gas has leaked from a pork pie-making plant for the second time this month and in both cases a refrigeration component system failure is suspected as the cause.
At 7am on February 27, a 'suspected component failure' at Pork Farms, a Nottingham-based supplier of pork pies and savoury rolls, caused ammonia gas to leak into the facility.

The site's automatic monitoring system raised the alarm and firefighters were called.

Referring to the latest leak, the company released the following statement 'The fire service responded quickly to the alarm and is now working in conjunction with management to establish the source of the gas leak.

'It is understood that the leak occurred in new equipment that has not yet been fully commissioned and is still therefore under contractor control.

On February 13, half a tonne of ammonia, used in Pork Farm's refrigeration system escaped into the area around the plant's Queen's Drive Industrial Estate. Firefighters were called at 5.30pm and 386 staff had to be evacuated.

Commenting on the February 13 leak, Chris Peters, managing director at Pork Farms confirmed the leak was caused by the failure of a refrigeration system component.