Researchers atHormel Foods Corp. andDole Fresh Vegetableswere among six honorees inNSF International's2009 Food Safety Leadership Awards. A not-for-profit public health and safety organization, NSF, Ann Arbor, Mich., will host its awards ceremony on April 27, 2009, during the 2009 Food Safety Summit at the Washington D.C. Convention Center.

Dr. Phillip Minerich, Hormel vice president of research and development, will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award in Packaging and Distribution. NSF noted that "because of Dr. Minerich's contributions (in food safety interventions and scientific claims analysis and validation), public health and food regulation agencies have better methods of contamination detection and [for] communicating events happening at a rapid rate."

Dole's Steve Robinson, vice president of business process development, will receive a Systems Improvement Award for creating "a groundbreaking food safety application" that tracks freshly harvested spinach from the point of harvest in the fields, through transport to processing and weigh scales, through weighing, through the flash cooling tubes and into the cold storage warehouse.