You may want to rethink buying your next candy bar after this horrifying story. A spokesman for the Camden County prosecutor’s office says Vincent Smith II, 29-year-old temporary worker at the Cocoa Services Inc. plant fell after a blade used to mix raw chocolate hit him.
The accident happened Wednesday morning as the worker was loading chocolate into the vat where it’s melted and mixed before being shipped elsewhere to be made into candy.
Prosecutor’s spokesman Jason Laughlin says a co-worker tried to shut off the machine and two others tried to pull the man out of the 8-foot-deep vat. Smith was pronounced dead at the scene and an autopsy revealed his cause of death to be asphyxiation, or drowning.
The Food and Drug Administration is monitoring the plant to make sure chocolate that came into contact with the victim does not get shipped. Cocoa Services hires a second company – Lyons and Sons – to do the mixing.

UPDATE*

Officials say a cocoa processing center in New Jersey was operating illegally when a worker fell into a vat of melting chocolate and died.

Camden cited Lyons & Sons Inc. for not having a business license after Vincent Smith II died Wednesday. Authorities say the 29-year-old was hit by a mixing paddle.

Company spokesman Kevin Feeley says that it’s a misunderstanding and that Camden officials knew the firm was operating in the former Campbell Soup plant.

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating the death.

The Food and Drug Administration is monitoring the plant to make sure chocolate that came into contact with the victim does not get shipped.

Forwomenonline.com