The Butterball, LLC production facility in Mount Olive, North Carolina has earned recertification as a Carolina Star site, a Voluntary Protection Program certification under the North Carolina Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Division. Commissioner Josh Dobson attended a special event in Mount Olive Tuesday to recognize Butterball leadership and team members for their commitment to workplace health and safety.
The Carolina Star program is designed to recognize employers and employees who have implemented effective safety and health management systems and maintain injury and illness rates that meet the criteria for participation. N.C. Department of Labor’s Carolina Star program is administered through its Education, Training and Technical Assistance Bureau under the Division.
Butterball, the only meat and poultry producer in the Carolina Star Program, earned its initial certification in 2008 and has been recertified twice since then. The Mount Olive facility currently boasts 2,600 employees making it the largest employer in the Carolina Star program. Butterball, one of eight companies that falls under the occupational safety and health Process Safety Management (PSM) of Highly Hazardous Chemicals standard, participates annually in the Carolina Star Safety Conference and maintains a leadership role on its regional Star team.
Butterball remains committed to its participation in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) VPP across multiple facilities. As a company, Butterball has achieved a company-wide Total Recordable Injury Rate nearly 50% better than the poultry industry Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) average. In recent years, other Butterball facilities have also hit major safety milestones, including the company’s Raeford, North Carolina plant, which achieved more than 3 million hours worked without an OSHA lost-time injury, and in 2021, the Huntsville, Arkansas plant achieved more than 5 million hours worked without an OSHA lost-time injury.
About Butterball’s Mount Olive Facility
The groundbreaking at the Mount Olive facility was in 1985, processing its first turkey in July of 1986. The plant is approximately 800,000 square feet and is located on 1,579 acres. The plant processes 650 to 700 million pounds of turkeys per year, an average of 55,000 turkeys per day. In addition to basic processing and debone, the plant also processes a wide range of value-added products, from raw ready to cook to fully cooked ready to eat products. The Mount Olive facility has a total value-added capacity of more than 250 million pounds annually.
About Butterball
Headquartered in Garner, N.C., Butterball, LLC is the largest producer of turkey products in the U.S. – producing more than 1 billion pounds of turkey each year. For more than 65 years, the company has provided food service and retail products to customers and consumers around the world. As an industry leader in quality, food safety and animal well-being, the company employs numerous processes to ensure the health of flocks and implements recognized prevention measures to exceed food safety standards. Butterball products are currently distributed throughout the U.S. and in more than 45 countries. Butterball operates six processing plants located in North Carolina, Arkansas and Missouri.
