In the past 18 months, editors of The National Provisioner visited more than a dozen companies and processing facilities, giving our readers an unprecedented look at the operations of some of the most innovative and progressive companies — telling their success stories and digging into the details of their efforts to further their business and the industry in general.
This year, we’ve created a new annual award — our Plant of the Year — and asked our readers, Web site visitors and industry contacts to vote, choosing from the list of processing facilities visited by NP from January 2011 through June 2012. Our readers responded with a significant turnout online, and when voting concluded, Universal Pasteurization Co. (UPC), a cold-storage, value-added and high-pressure pasteurization (HPP) company featured in our April 2012 issue, tallied 29% of the vote to earn the inaugural Plant of the Year award.