The global business, which has a worldwide turnover of £700m, was also forced to pay costs of £2,533 following its prosecution by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for failing to protect workers from dangerous machine parts.

The 49-year-old man, from Thornton near Crosby, who requested not to be named, lost the top of three fingers on his right hand while trying to clear a jam in a machine on 13 March 2010.

He was clearing a blockage in a machine used to dry plastic beads when the incident happened. The man had removed a discharge pipe to deal with the jam, when his hand came into contact with a 1.7-metre-long rotating screw, known as an auger.

Through its investigation into the accident, the HSE found that workers were often at risk of being injured by the auger as they had to deal with blockages in the pipe once or twice a shift.

Chris Goddard, the investigating inspector at HSE, said: "Unfortunately, the company became used to the machine being blocked, and did not realise the danger workers faced when they removed the pipe to clear jams.

"It should have looked in more detail at how its employees were dealing with the blockages, so that action could have been taken to prevent someone being injured. Instead, workers were able to reach into the machine and were at risk of coming into contact with the rotating auger."