Industry Specific First Aid Kits

A warehouse first aid kit and a restaurant kit share the same core contents, but each adds extra items based on the industry and the work environment. The injuries a crew faces on a construction site aren’t the same as the ones a line cook handles in a kitchen, or the roadside hazards a truck driver deals with alone. That difference isn’t just for show. Your industry and work environment decide which extra supplies you need, and how much of each. And what’s in the kit decides the refill pack it uses. So the smartest move is to start with your industry, its real hazards, and how fast you go through supplies, instead of grabbing a generic OSHA/ANSI workplace kit and hoping it covers everyone involved.

If you buy first aid supplies for more than one of these industries, here’s the simple takeaway. The industry type decides what’s in the kit. What’s in the kit decides the refill pack. And the smart move is to start with the kit designed for your industry, one that fits your hazards and usage and still meets ANSI, not a generic kit you hope works for everyone.

Key Takeaways

• OSHA doesn’t list what goes in a first aid kit. Its rule (Section 1910.151) points to the ANSI/ISEA Z308.1 standard, which holds the actual supply list.
• Z308.1-2021 sets two levels: Class A for common, lower-risk injuries, and Class B for higher-risk, more serious settings.
• Construction runs Class A or B, often B, in a weatherproof case. Food service leans on burn care and blue bandages that show up against food. Fleet needs a small, travel-rated kit for a driver alone on the road.
• Refills don’t have to be proprietary. MFASCO refills fit the industry-standard metal cabinets most businesses already use, so switching suppliers doesn’t mean new hardware, and each kit’s Refill This Kit list on its product page is your template for staying stocked and compliant.

In this article: OSHA and ANSI basics, Construction, Fleet and transportation, Food service, Side-by-side comparison, Why refills follow the industry, Restocking implications, FAQ.

OSHA, ANSI, and why the standard matters more than the regulation

The rule people reach for is OSHA 1910.151, but it’s short and doesn’t spell out the details. It says first aid supplies must be easy to reach when no clinic is nearby. It doesn’t name a single bandage. For the actual contents, OSHA points to ANSI/ISEA Z308.1, the national standard that sets the minimum for workplace first aid kits. Construction has its own matching rule, OSHA 1926.50, which calls for enough first aid supplies on the job site. In practice, employers meet it with the same ANSI list.

So the details live in the standard, not the rule. And Z308.1 sorts kits two ways: by class (what’s inside) and by type (the box and where it goes).

Class A vs Class B: the contents

Class A kits handle the injuries almost every workplace sees: minor cuts, scrapes, minor burns, and sprains. Class B kits carry the same items in larger amounts and add supplies for more serious or higher-volume injuries, like a splint and a tourniquet. Here’s the rule of thumb: class is about the danger, not the number of people. Lower-risk places start at Class A; higher-risk places move to Class B. Your headcount tells you how many kits to place and how fast they empty, not which class to pick.

Type I to IV: the container

Class is about the contents; type is about the box. Type I is a fixed indoor kit. Type II is a portable indoor kit. Type III is a mobile kit made to mount and travel. Type IV is built for tough conditions: water-resistant, drop-resistant, made to ride in a truck or sit out on a job site. This is the part fleet and construction buyers miss. The right supplies in the wrong box fail the moment they get rained on or bounced around a cab.

If you already know your class and just need to restock your cabinets, the restock hub is the shortest path: checklists, cabinet matching, and reorder lists by kit type.

Construction first aid kits

On a construction site, the injuries run toward the severe end: deep cuts and punctures from tools and rebar, struck-by and caught-between injuries, eye injuries from grinding and flying debris, and the real chance of heavy bleeding far from fast EMS help. Depending on how severe a site’s hazards are, a construction kit can be Class A or Class B, and higher-risk sites often land on Class B. What stays constant is the box. It almost always needs to be Type IV, weatherproof and drop-proof, because the kit lives outdoors.

The supplies follow the dangers: trauma dressings and extra bleeding control including a tourniquet, eye wash for debris, plenty of bandages and gauze because a crew goes through them fast, and a rugged case you can mount. Because sites move and crews grow and shrink, restocking is constant, not occasional.

Fleet and transportation first aid kits

Here’s the honest answer to a question that trips up a lot of buyers: the DOT does not require a first aid kit in most commercial vehicles. Federal motor carrier rules (49 CFR 393.95) require gear like warning triangles, a fire extinguisher, and spare fuses, but not a first aid kit. What drives the kit is OSHA’s general expectation that supplies be on hand for workers, plus plain common sense: a driver is often alone, far from help, and first on the scene of their own crash.

That reality shapes the kit more than any rule does. Fleet kits should be small enough to stow in a cab, travel-rated (Type III), and stocked for what a driver really faces: cuts from road debris, burns from hot engine parts, sprains, and time out in the weather. Class A is usually enough for a one-person vehicle; step up for crew trucks or vehicles that carry passengers.

Food service first aid kits

Restaurant kitchens produce a clear, predictable mix of injuries: burns from fryers, grills, steam, and hot oil, and cuts from knives, slicers, and broken glass. A food service kit is a burn-and-cut kit first. Most single-location restaurants start at Class A with extra weight on burn care, though busy or multi-station kitchens often step up to a Class B pack.

The one item that sets food service apart is the blue bandage. A bandage can come off in a busy kitchen, and blue is the color of choice because no food is naturally blue, so a lost one is easy to spot before it reaches a customer. Plain beige bandages blend in and don’t belong in a commercial kitchen. Many blue bandages are also metal-detectable, but that feature is really for food processing plants, where a metal detector on the line catches a lost piece. A restaurant kitchen has no metal detector, so there the color is what counts.

One difference worth keeping straight: food service (restaurants, cafes, catering) is not the same as food processing or manufacturing. Processing plants follow different rules, with FDA and USDA oversight and HACCP and GMP programs, and their kits and steps are stricter to match. This article is about food service.

The three side by side

Why refill choice follows the industry, not the cabinet

A self-managed kit is checked and restocked by someone in-house, not by a service like Cintas. The complete kit and the complete refill pack matter most at two “start fresh” moments: when you first buy a kit, and when you drop a service and bring restocking in-house.

Not all first aid kits are the same, they can be built for your industry. You already know yours, so shop for a kit made for your setting that also meets the ANSI rules. A restaurant kit isn’t the same as a general-industry ANSI kit. It leads with blue detectable bandages, but it still holds the ANSI minimum, plus a few extras for that setting. Picking the right complete kit or refill pack up front sets the standard for everything after.

Then it’s maintenance, and this is where MFASCO works differently. We don’t use special cabinets locked to one brand. We use the same industry-standard metal cabinets businesses have used since the 1970s, in 2, 3, 4, and 5-shelf sizes. What goes inside changes with the setting, a school, an athletic club, a factory, or a restaurant, but the cabinet is the one you probably already own. Switching to MFASCO doesn’t mean new hardware.

Day to day, you won’t buy a whole refill pack every time the bandages run low. You’ll reorder the items you used. That’s where each kit’s product page earns its keep. It lists the kit’s contents under a “Refill This Kit” tab, and that list is your template: the master list of exactly what belongs in that kit. Reorder against it and the kit stays the same, stays stocked, and stays compliant. The complete refill pack is there for a full reset, a first purchase or a switch off a service, not for every cycle. If nothing off the shelf fits, Make-A-Kit builds the kit and its refill list from scratch.

Whether you start with an MFASCO kit or a refill pack, the refill options keep the right industry-specific supplies, and the right layout, in the kit while you run it yourself.

Restocking implications: what to actually do

• Match the refill to the class, not just the kit. A Class B construction cabinet needs a Class B refill. A Class A pack leaves it short of the class it was built for.
• Check on a schedule that fits how fast you use it. Fast-moving items, like bandages in a kitchen or gauze on a site, run out first. Set your check-up schedule to the industry, not a one-size quarterly habit.
• Use the same setup across sites where you can. One refill list per industry is far easier to check than a different list at every location. Multi-site teams can build that single list with How Procurement Teams Source ANSI-Compliant First Aid Refills at Scale.
• Don’t forget the box itself. If a Type IV case is cracked or a cab kit is water-damaged, refilling the supplies won’t fix the problem.

For a step-by-step way to run a refill cycle, see How to Refill and Restock Your First Aid Kit. To work through it by kit type, the restock hub has printable shelf checklists, the ReStockKit™ visual tool for matching your cabinet layout, and reminders you can schedule so the next inspection is not the one you forget.

Source it direct, by industry

The short version, across all three industries: let the setting decide the kit, let the kit decide the refill, and buy both direct so you control what’s in it. MFASCO stocks industry-specific kits and matching refill packs for workplace and construction, auto and fleet, and restaurant use, plus the individual supplies to top off any kit. Everything fits the standard metal cabinet you already own, with nothing locked to one brand.