Food and drink health and safety awards 2025

The awards are supported by the IOSH Food and Drink Industries Group and the Food & Drink Manufacture Health and Safety Forum. The forum includes food and drink trade associations, trade unions and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

Read about the categories and how to enter.

The categories

Award 1 – Innovations in risk reduction

This award recognises an organisational or team activity that has had a significant impact on, and directly contributed to, the reduction of ill-health and injury accidents. This is a self-entry category for a team or business.

Award 2 – Driving excellence in OSH culture change

This organisational award recognises how strong safety leadership can inspire mindset change and have a positive impact on occupational safety and health (OSH) culture and performance. This is a self-entry category for a team or business.

Award 3 – Advocating for safety

This award recognises tenacity, courage and passion. It is for an individual who, by challenging the norms in their workplace, has inspired those around them to think differently about safety, health and wellbeing. In this entry category, the individual must be nominated.

Who can apply?

Entry is open to anyone working in the food and drink manufacturing industry anywhere in the world. OSH experts, engineers, process operators, managers and workers’ safety representatives are eligible. 

Entering the awards is a great way of celebrating your success in tackling an OSH issue at your workplace. 

Judges are keen to showcase good practice and learn from experience in as many countries as possible.

Your project must be original and unpublished. The intellectual property rights of the project remain with you or your employer. You are responsible for making sure you have your employer’s approval for sending in your entry.

Entry is free and you can enter any or all three of the awards. The entry forms are straightforward and easy to complete. 

And, if you are selected as a winner or runner-up, you can share that success with colleagues in the wider industry.

What could you win?

The first prize is a trophy, a free place at the conference and the opportunity to give a presentation, with the runner-up receiving a trophy and a place at the conference.

Awards will be presented at the awards dinner on Monday 06 October and the presentation will be delivered during the conference on Tuesday 07 October.

Judging

Representatives from IOSH, the HSE and the trade associations and trade unions in the Food and Drink Manufacture Health and Safety Forum will judge the entries. 

Your entry should tackle a proven OSH need in your workplace. Consider:

• situation – tell us what the problem was
• action – what activity took place
• outcomes – how you measured success
• impact – the effect of the activity in your workplace.

Naturally, the judges want to know about improvements in health or safety. But they are also interested in innovations that have brought other business benefits or have demonstrated strong leadership or good employee engagement.