Agriculture can be a dangerous industry, but two corn refining companies located in Dayton have received national safety awards from the Corn Refiners Association.
Primient and Cargill have multiple locations across the Midwest that were recognized for low incident rates and zero lost workdays.
The Corn Refiners Association is a national trade association that represents the corn refining industry in the U.S.
As members of the association, Primient and Cargill were two of the five companies that earned 25 workplace safety awards.
Safety metrics across the industry are now comparable to office-based work, according to the association. This shift in safety is a major milestone for corn refiners, pushing a new standard across the industry.
Data from 2025 shows Ohio's corn refining sector generates over $2 billion in economic output, with 7,000 jobs across the industry.
Primient’s Dayton citric acid plant has been operating off Needmore Road for 50 years. It produces between 10 million to 15 million pounds of citric acid per month.
"Quite a lot of output from this site here. We like to say we run the plant in a sold out state. We have a really good business model that keeps this plant at capacity and it has sustained there within recent history," said Donovan Breeden, plant manager at the Dayton location.
It currently employs just over 100 full-time staff and 20 to 40 contractors.
It has utilized the Safe STAR process over the past two years, Breeden said, to shift focus toward the “human factors” of safety.
“Really, that whole process is about telling stories to each other to highlight potential risks that you may face in a day," he said. "And through sharing those stories, and those stories generally come from home as well, it really opens up the hazard recognition of the employees.”
Those efforts have earned two awards this year, including the CRA incident Rate Excellence Award and the Zero Lost Workdays Award.
These add to other safety recognitions dating back to 2014, including 1 million man hours of safe work in 2023.
"We are very proud of that achievement and it gives recognition to my workforce that they may not get all the time, at least externally," Breeden said.
Primient will continue to promote safety, Breeden said, as the company implements over $30 million dollars of investments to the plant's infrastructure over the past five years.
“We've done major infrastructure replacements on our chemical systems, steam systems, anything that could have a human contact," he said. "And we've also put in all brand new packaging lines that use a mixture of robotics to remove some of the ergonomic potential injuries that could occur.”
Cargill did not respond to a request for comment on their awards.
