At its Plant Operations Conference in St. Louis in late April, the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) honored a select group of dairy companies with IDFA Dairy Industry Safety Recognition Awards and Achievement Certificates. This is the third year IDFA has sponsored this program, which highlights the outstanding worker-safety records of U.S. dairy companies.

The operations for each nominated company were judged solely on specific data required annually by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) on the facility’s “Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses” report (OSHA Form 300A). This year’s award decisions were based on data from OSHA reports for the 2005 calendar year.

The award program includes categories for both processing facilities and trucking operations in the dairy industry. In addition to the 40 category award winners, IDFA awarded Achievement Certificates to 26 processing and trucking operations for having no injury cases that resulted in lost time away from work.

“We’ve had an extremely positive response to this program from dairy companies and noticed a significant uptick in participation this year. This increased interest truly demonstrates the industry’s commitment to worker safety,” said Clay Detlefsen, IDFA vice president of regulatory affairs. “We congratulate all of the participants on their accomplishments.”

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. Trucking companies were scored on their OSHA summaries according to the type of location: short haul, long haul or mixed; awards were categorized for small and large facilities.