Dairy Foods announced the return of its Plant of the Year award. Dairy Foods will be judging this year’s program based on specific outstanding achievements outlined in the entries.

Cups of yogurt travel down conveyors toward tray packagers or cartoners to be stacked on pallets and stored in a refrigerated warehouse. All of these steps serve to protect the product. This package-handling machinery is also a source of energy that dairy processors can recover and redeploy elsewhere in the plant.

The experience acquired through years of hands-on processing is at risk of being lost as plants adopt automation. While IT knows computers, production personnel’s hands-on knowledge of how equipment works contributes to food safety. The upshot? Balance the two.