ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA, US — The American Feed Industry Association (AFIA) along with Feedstuffs plans to relaunch its Feed Facility of the Year (FFY) Program after pausing the program due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
With the reintroduction of the program AFIA also has decided to make changes to the program. The association 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, director of feed manufacturing and regulatory affairs for the AFIA. “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.”
Since 1985, the AFIA has been recognizing feed manufacturing facilities and in 2016 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 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 also will be more customized for each category and easier to fill out.
The most recent Feed Facility of the Year program winners, from 2019, include:
- Overall winner: Koch Farms, Morton, Mississippi, US
- Premix manufacturing plant: Trouw Nutrition, Highland, Illinois, US
- Liquid feed plant: Quality Liquid Feeds, Clovis, New Mexico, US
- Commercial dry livestock feed plant: Western Milling, Goshen, California, US
- Integrator: Koch Foods, Morton, Mississippi, US
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, Illinois, US, Sept. 7-9. The winning plant manager will receive overnight accommodations and a free registration to the symposium.
