Concord Facility Achieves Major Safety Milestone

Perdue Farms, a fourth-generation, family-owned U.S. food and agricultural products company, announced the achievement of a significant safety milestone. The company’s Concord, North Carolina food production facility completed an entire year without an Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) recordable safety incident, a rare safety milestone.

An OSHA recordable incident is any work-related injury or illness that’s serious enough to require medical attention, cause missed work, involve a major diagnosis, or lead to unconsciousness, all tracked by employers to improve workplace safety.

On July 11, the Concord team celebrated one year without a single recordable safety incident. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average poultry processing facility experiences 5.7 recordable incidents per 100 employees annually. The Concord facility has 270 associates which demonstrates the significance of this milestone.

Gregg Uecker, Chief Supply Chain and Operations Officer of Perdue Farms commented:

“Over the past three years, the Concord team has been implementing a robust Maintenance and Reliability Strategy, which has led to a 60% improvement in overall plant downtime performance, a 140% improvement in maintenance labor spend variance to standard, and a 120% improvement in material and services spend variance to standard. These efforts have been key in achieving this incredible safety milestone.”

The Concord site’s continuous improvement and unwavering focus on safety have been recognized with the prestigious Reliability of Everything™ Culture Improvement Award from Efficient Plant magazine and the University of Tennessee Reliability & Maintainability Center.

“This milestone is a celebration of our team’s dedication to maintaining a safe and productive workplace,” said Joe Johnson, Perdue director of operations in Concord. “This is a great milestone for our team, and I want to personally thank all our associates for their hard work and dedication.”

* Agri Stats is a data analytics and consulting company that focuses on the meat processing industry.