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Meeting of the Minds
All Star’s annual convention covers issues, elects new board members and honors industry excellence.
Lexington, Ky.-based All Star Dairy Association Inc. (ASDA) held its 48th annual convention March 15 to 18 at the Orlando Marriott World Center in Florida. President Larry Kurz, of Readington Farms in Whitehouse, N.J., and ASDA executive director Jeff Sterne presided over a record attendance of 302 people, which included 44 dairy, water and custom-mold members representing 62 plants.
The convention featured presentations from Save-A-Lot
Foods; Arizona State University professor Marianne Jennings, on business
ethics; and Pat Williams, executive vice president of the NBA’s
Orlando Magic. Other subjects covered included lowering health insurance
costs, distribution savings, current regulation changes, major commodity
updates and projections, and cost benchmarks.
During the four-day meeting, new board members were
elected and companies were honored with special awards of merit. Newly
elected members include Brian Perry of Perry’s Ice Cream,
Novile Ramsey of Milkco Inc., Richard Washburn of Washburn’s Ice
Cream and Richard Shehadey of Producers Dairy.
The following companies were recognized with awards:
Dairy of the Year Award — Southwest Foods, Tyler, Texas; Purchasing
Award (large company) — Readington Farms Dairy, Whitehouse, N.J.;
Purchasing Award (small company) — Jilbert’s Dairy, Marquette,
Mich.
Quality Assurance Awards were issued to the following
companies: Best Fluid Plant — Southwest Foods, Tyler, Texas; Best
Culture Plant — Louis Trauth Dairy, Newport, Ky.; Best Ice Cream
Plant (tie) — Louis Trauth Dairy, Newport, Ky., and Southwest
Foods, Tyler, Texas; “Doc Lawrence” (Most Improved Plant)
— Schneider Dairy, Pittsburgh; “Thoroughbred Award”
(Supplier of the Year) — ExxonMobil, Houston.
The $5,000 John D. Utterback Annual College
Scholarship was
awarded evenly to member employees or dependants to be used towards a food
science degree.
Established in 1955, ASDA has 190 member companies
representing 289 plants in 45 states, Puerto Rico and Nova Scotia.
With access to over one million professionals and more than 60 industry-specific publications,
