Kudos to KNG's Mason Plant

Written by: AFIA Editor   |   January 26, 2022

Feed Facility of the Year, Feed safety

"Being named the AFIA 2021 Commercial Dry Feed Facility of the Year award winner is a great honor and recognition of our team’s efforts to continually improve.” 

That is the quote from Kent Nutrition Group’s (KNG) Mason Plant's plant manager Dave Earl after learning that his facility won the American Feed Industry Association's top industry award for commercial dry feed facilities.

The announcement came at today's AFIA Feed Education Program, where AFIA's Gary Huddleston presented the award to the company's leadership, saying that this plant "prides itself not only on excellent customer service, but also in delivering 19,000 tons of high-quality feed for several livestock species throughout the Midwest." He continued that the plant boasts low staff turnover and great teamwork, which has led it to make several improvements that have led to greater production effiicency and safety of its products.

An example of this came in 2018 when the company upgraded its mixing system from the Aceco system, which had been in operation since 1989, to the new, extremely precise Repete Mixing System. This system has allowed the plant to streamline its mixing process and put in place safeguards to reduce opportunities for human error, such as proceeding with a manufacturing run if the sequencing and flushing procedures are not properly followed. Now, Kent Nutrition Group can stack runs seamlessly and has extensive lot tracking and traceability capabilities, allowing each ingredient to be traced back to the original supplier’s lot code, a valuable tool in everyday operations. 

Earl said:

“With less downtime between runs, our team gets more production out of our workday. We are able to produce our quality Kent products more effectively and efficiently, creating near perfect products every time, on time."

Please join AFIA and media partner Feedstuffs in congratulating this facility for a job well done!

Photo caption: Kent Nutrition Group’s (KNG) Mason (Mich.) Plant wins AFIA’s 2021 Commercial Dry Feed Facility of the Year award. From left: Mike Gauss, president; Duke Tanguy, central region director of operations; and Jason Lents, senior director of operations.