The food safety team from Schreiber Foods Inc. received the International Dairy Foods Association’s (IDFA) 2023 Food Safety Leadership Award during IDFA’s Dairy Forum. Staci Richardson, vice president of enterprise quality and food safety at Schreiber Foods, accepted the award on behalf of her team members. The award, now in its seventh year, honors an individual, group or organization for demonstrating outstanding leadership directed at enhancing food safety within the dairy products industry. 

 “The Schreiber team prioritizes improving food safety throughout the dairy industry,” said John Allan, IDFA vice president of regulatory affairs and international standards. “Their contributions have helped the industry develop fermentation risk assessments for yogurt and cream cheese, understand how to better reduce mold on cheese, develop rapid pathogen testing for a number of products and processes, and much more. IDFA is proud to present this year’s Food Safety Leadership Award to the team from Schreiber Foods.”

“This is very special recognition of the work our food safety team does tirelessly to protect consumers and customers and ensure safe food for everyone who enjoys dairy products,” said Richardson. “It’s such a prestigious and humbling honor that we were chosen out of all the IDFA member companies. This award is a testament to the full commitment to food safety we have at all levels of Schreiber Foods and the work that we do across the industry.”

Individuals from Schreiber Foods’ team are active members of IDFA’s Food Safety Committee and several other industry food safety groups and organizations. Experts from Schreiber regularly share resources, such as checklists, templates and best practices, author research articles, and they regularly make presentations to professional organizations committed to food safety in the dairy and broader food industries.  

 Previous recipients of the award are Jeremy Travis, Vice President of Quality & Technical Services for Hilmar Cheese Company, Inc. (2022), Dairy Farmers of America (2021), Edith Wilkin, Staff Vice President and Fellow, Food Safety and Regulatory Compliance, for Leprino Foods (2020); The Ice Cream Club, Inc. (2019); Brian Kraus, Director of Food Safety and Regulatory Compliance, Wells Enterprises, Inc. (2018); and the Cornell University Dairy Foods Extension team (2017).