The American Feed Industry Association (AFIA), in coordination with Feedstuffs, is relaunching its Feed Facility of the Year (FFY) program after a brief hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic with new changes expected to enhance the program for the future. Of note, the AFIA will be providing awards for each program category, to be recognized at AFIA events in front of industry colleagues, and discontinuing the overall award.
“With COVID-19 making plant visits difficult to conduct, we decided to pause the Feed Facility of the Year program for 2020 and use the time off to reevaluate our program and adjust it to better fit the needs and desires of our membership,” said Gary Huddleston, the AFIA’s director of feed manufacturing and regulatory affairs. “We received a lot of input from the AFIA Production Compliance Committee as well as member focus groups and are excited about the changes that we will be implementing this year.”
The AFIA has been recognizing excellent feed manufacturing facilities since 1985. In 2016, the AFIA created four distinct manufacturing categories to be more inclusive of industry facilities. The FFY program will continue by separating each category into its own individual program: liquid feed, commercial dry, premix and ingredient, and integrator.
Each category will have its own facility of the year award and the programs will run at different times of the year, with each category winner being recognized at different venues. The new and improved program will also include more awards within each category, such as the highest scores for safety, quality and food safety and production efficiency. Each category will continue to use the facility scorecards to allow facility managers the ability to see how their facility compares to others in the industry. The application will also be more customized for each category and easier to fill out.
The application process for the Liquid Feed Facility of the Year is now open for $100 and submissions are due by July 2. The winning facility will be recognized this fall at the AFIA’s Liquid Feed Symposium (LFS) in Chicago, Ill. The winning plant manager will receive overnight accommodations and a free registration to the symposium.
