The American Feed Industry Assn. (AFIA) is now accepting applications for the 2016 Feed Facility of the Year award program, a redesign of the AFIA/Feedstuffs annual Feed Mill of the Year program. The program recognizes overall excellence in feed manufacturing operations, emphasizing safety, quality, regulatory compliance, operating efficiencies and overall industry awards.

"Many of our members want to know how their operations--whether they're liquid feed facilities, pet food facilities, integrators, etc.--compare to others in the business," said Gary Huddleston, AFIA manager of feed manufacturing safety and environmental affairs. "AFIA, along with Feedstuffs, is excited to launch its new Feed Facility of the Year awards program, which gives companies the opportunity to access important [anonymous] benchmarking information and the chance of public industry recognition."

Take a look inside the 2015 award winner's facility: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOl0Jkp3nHw.

Huddleston said members will notice as the first-class industry program is reintroduced changes including a more diverse application system.

"Since the previous program (Feed Mill of the Year) was not considered an industry-wide benchmarking program--and AFIA prides itself on representing the total feed industry--we made certain changes to address this in our new program. Feed Facility of the Year will be much more industry inclusive," said Huddleston.

To keep benchmarking information relative, five award categories, with category-specific applications, are now considered:

1.         Commercial Dry Livestock Feed Facility

2.         Integrator Feed Facility

3.         Liquid Feed Facility

4.         Pet Food Facility

5.         Premix Manufacturing Facility

AFIA will recognize winners in each of the five categories and the overall Feed Facility of the Year winner at the 2017 International Production & Processing Expo.

Applications are due by Sept. 30. A $35 fee must be paid per application, per facility.

The American Feed Industry Association, based in Arlington, Va., is the world's largest organization devoted exclusively to representing the business, legislative and regulatory interests of the U.S. animal feed industry and its suppliers. Founded in 1909, the organization membership is comprised of the total feed industry-from commercial and integrated feed manufacturers, to ingredient suppliers, pet food manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, industry support and equipment manufacturers. AFIA is also the recognized leader on international industry developments and holds membership in the International Feed Industry Federation.

Members include more than 600 domestic and international companies. More than 75 percent of the feed and 70 percent of the non-grain ingredients including soybean meal, distillers co-products, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, yeast products and other miscellaneous/specialty ingredients in the U.S. are manufactured by AFIA members.