ATLANTA, GEORGIA, US — MFA Inc.’s feed mill in Aurora, Missouri, US, was named the 2023 Commercial Dry Feed Facility of the Year during the American Feed Industry Association’s (AFIA) Feed Education Program on Jan. 31. The program was held on the second day of the 2024 International Production and Processing Expo (IPPE) at the Georgia World Congress Center.

Gary Huddleston, director of feed manufacturing and regulatory affairs for the AFIA, presented the award, sponsored by AFIA and Feedstuffs, to Trevor Erwin, plant manager at the Aurora facility.

“We take great pleasure in acknowledging those commercial dry facilities that exceed expectations in their commitment to ensuring safe and efficient operations,” Huddleston said. “The MFA’s Aurora facility is an interesting mix of old and new, and it demonstrates how facilities can evolve over time and adjust to the needs of a changing industry.”

Erwin accepted the honor on behalf of the mill’s employees and MFA, a farmer-owned cooperative headquartered in Columbia, Missouri, US.

“For me this is more of a team award,” Erwin said. “Without my 14 employees, this obviously wouldn’t be possible. MFA, from the corporate structure on down, makes it easy for us.”

The Aurora mill, which was built in the 1960s and expanded in 1999, produces 40,000 tonnes of feed annually for multiple species, Huddleston noted. It is approved to manufacture medicate feed and is Safe Feed/Safe Food certified.

“One of the things they did recently was install a new pellet cooler system that was put in there to improve the quality of pellets as well as efficiency and capacity,” he said. “Also, new automation was added across all systems about a year ago.”

During his visit to the plant in 2023, Huddleston said he noticed several unique aspects of the operation.

“One of the neat things we observed is they have a really big maintenance shop — bigger than you see in most feed mills,” Huddleston said. “They rebuild pellet mills for all MFA facilities. If one goes down, Trevor can send one out to other facilities and keep them in action.”

The semifinalists for AFIA’s 2023 Commercial Dry Feed Facility of the Year award were Kent Nutrition Group of Logansport, Indiana, US, and Marshall, Missouri, US, and Western Milling of Goshen, California, US.

The AFIA has been recognizing excellent feed manufacturing facilities through the Feed Mill of the Year program since 1985. Beginning in 2016, the program expanded to the Feed Facility of the Year and began offering awards for an overall winner and four category winners. In 2021, the program separated each category into its own individual program: liquid feed, commercial dry, premix and ingredient, and integrator, with each category having its own facility of the year award. Huddleston noted that Commercial Dry is the largest category.

The educational program also included updates on the latest regulatory developments in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

This year’s IPPE, sponsored by the AFIA, the North American Meat Institute and the US Poultry & Egg Association, is the largest in history in terms of the number of exhibitors (nearly 1,300) and exhibit space (600,000 square feet). Constance Cullman, president and chief executive officer of the AFIA, told World Grain it also may break the attendance record of nearly 33,000 set in 2019.

“We are beyond back to pre-COVID levels; we’re super excited,” Cullman said. “We’ve had a record number of exhibitors, we have record floor space occupation and it looks like we’re heading toward record attendance. We are seeing people really excited about being here and doing business, so the hallways are flooded, the education sessions are flooded. It has been a really wonderful show so far, and we’re hoping to really finish out strong.”

The final day of the event is Feb. 1.