Elliot O. Grosvenor Food Safety Award

Established in 2010, the Elliot O. Grosvenor Food Safety Award is given to recognize outstanding achievements made by food safety programs within State Departments of Agriculture, Natural Resource Agencies, Public Health Departments or Environmental Conservation Departments in the United States or Canada. The award will go to the program that best showcases improvement, innovation, or sustained high performance within a food safety program.  Provide a detailed description of your comprehensive program within the past 5 years.  Program elements should assess proficiency in strategic planning, managing, and evaluating continuous improvement.

One key measuring criteria should be: identify progress to conformance toward and integration of food safety regulatory program standards into your agency.

Identify any challenges that the program sought to improve in the period selected, including the rationale used in setting priorities.  Describe how the actions taken can be used or duplicated by other programs. 

A food safety program could include responsibility for: food safety, food protection, and food defense or food sanitation.

Qualifications for nominees

  • Be a food safety program within State Departments of Agriculture, Natural Resource Agencies, Public Health Departments or Environmental Conservation Departments in the United States or Canada
  • Must have employee(s) with active membership with AFDO and/or affiliate
  • Self-nominations are encouraged

Criteria for nominations

The nomination package must include:

  • Detailed description of your comprehensive program within the past 5 years
  • Evidence of support for the improvement, innovation, or sustained high performance
  • Assess productivity in strategic planning, managing and evaluating continual improvement
  • Identify conformance and integration of food safety regulatory standards
  • Identify any challenges that the program was able to overcome, including rationale and priority schedule
  • Examples of contributions to public health principles and commitment to food safety
  • Describe how the actions taken can be used or duplicated by other programs.
  • Maximum two letters of support

Submitting nominations

Supporting documentation covering the above criteria should be submitted with a nomination form and letters of support. Nominations must be submitted to the AFDO Awards Committee Chair by April 1st and will be reviewed by the Elliot O. Grosvenor Food Safety Award Committee.  Self-assessments for programs standards may be used to demonstrate progress.The winner of this award will designate one individual to represent them at the annual AFDO Educational Conference to publicly receive the recognition.