The International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) announced the names of 137 dairy company operations that will receive IDFA Dairy Industry Safety Recognition Awards and Achievement Certificates this year — the 13th year IDFA has sponsored the program, which highlights the outstanding worker safety records of U.S. dairy companies.
“We’re excited that the number of award-winning companies jumped by nearly 30 names this year. It’s clear that dairy foods companies continue to make workplace safety a top priority in all of their operations,” says Emily Lyons, director of regulatory affairs and counsel at IDFA. “With these awards, we recognize the ongoing efforts of employees and management at each of these companies and celebrate their success.”
The operations for each nominated company were judged solely on specific data required by OSHA on the facility’s “Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses” report. The award program includes categories for both processing facilities and trucking operations in the dairy industry. In addition to the 44 plant safety category award winners, IDFA awarded achievement certificates to 26 processing operations for having no injury cases that resulted in lost time away from work. IDFA also recognized 67 trucking operations for having a Zero DART rate — zero cases with days away from work, restriction or job transfer in 2015.
Processing facilities were judged in four product categories: natural and processed cheese; dry, condensed and evaporated products; ice cream and frozen desserts; and fluid milk. Within each product category, IDFA accepted nominations for small, medium and large facilities that achieved the best overall safety performance rates based on the OSHA data.
The full list of winners can be found here.
