Processed cheeses manufacturing · Illinois

Berner Foods - Dakota

Dakota, IL · ~728 workers · 7 years of OSHA Injury Tracking Application data.

C
Average Safety Record
3.2
Avg TCR
3.3
Industry avg
0
Fatalities

The verdict

Berner Foods - Dakota runs at 98% of its industry's injury rate - about level with the typical Processed cheeses manufacturing workplace, earning a grade C.

C
Average Safety Record
3.2
avg TCR · per 100 workers
3.3
industry benchmark (BLS)
173
recordable injuries tracked

Grade compares Berner Foods - Dakota's OSHA Total Case Rate to the BLS industry benchmark across 7 years of Form 300A filings (2016–2024). This reflects reported recordable injuries, not an independent safety inspection -- underreporting is a known limitation of employer self-recordkeeping.

Injury rate over time

Berner Foods - Dakota's yearly Total Case Rate, against the 3.3 industry benchmark.

12345 2017201820192020202120222024 1.23.3 Industry benchmarkBerner Foods - Dakota TCR
Total Case Rate (recordable injuries per 100 full-time workers), OSHA ITA Form 300A. Industry benchmark: BLS IIF, NAICS 311513.

Where Berner Foods - Dakota falls in its industry

386 Processed cheeses manufacturin establishments

Safer than 72% of graded establishments in this industry, whose median TCR is 4.8.

More dangerous than peersSafer than peers

Narrower to Illinois alone (the establishments it most directly competes with for workers and contracts): ranked #4 safest of 8 Processed cheeses manufacturin employers in Illinois.

Berner Foods - Dakota has an average TCR of 3.2, which is 98% of the industry average (3.3) for Processed cheeses manufacturing. This is better than average.

The letter grade is a transparent derived index PlainSafetyScore computes from public OSHA ITA and BLS benchmark data, not an official OSHA rating or safety certification. Full formula and thresholds: Methodology.

Trend analysis for Berner Foods - Dakota

Between 2017 and 2024, Berner Foods - Dakota's Total Case Rate improved from 4.3 to 1.2 recordable injuries per 100 full-time workers, a 72% decrease across 7 years of OSHA reporting.

The safest year on record was 2024, at a TCR of 1.2, while 2018 saw the highest rate, at 4.7, a spread of 3.5 points between the best and worst reporting years. That's a wide swing relative to the establishment's overall rate, worth checking the year-by-year table below for whether a single severe year is driving the average, rather than a sustained trend.

Summed across those 7 reporting years, Berner Foods - Dakota recorded 173 total injuries and illnesses, with no fatalities reported in any of those years. Readers comparing establishments should weigh the 7-year trend above alongside establishment size, since a larger workforce naturally accumulates more raw incidents even at a lower per-100-worker rate.

Verify This Employer with OSHA

All injury, illness, and fatality figures on this page are sourced from Berner Foods - Dakota's own mandatory OSHA Form 300A summaries. Cross-check the underlying establishment record directly against the federal source, name, NAICS classification, recordable case totals, and inspection history are all searchable on OSHA's Establishment-Specific Injury and Illness Data system.

Verify on OSHA Establishment Search

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, OSHA Establishment-Specific Injury and Illness Data. NAICS 311513 - Processed cheeses manufacturing.

DART Rate, Transparent Calculation (2024)

DART (Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred) is computed by OSHA as incidents × 200,000 ÷ hours worked. The 200,000-hour denominator equals roughly 100 full-time workers, which lets establishments of very different sizes be compared directly.

6 DART incidents × 200,000 ÷ 1,512,613 hours worked = 0.79 DART

Methodology: 29 CFR 1904, OSHA Form 300A recordkeeping

Cross-Validating Context, Establishment vs Industry vs State

Benchmark TCR Source
Berner Foods - Dakota (this establishment) 3.23 OSHA ITA Form 300A, 7-year avg
Processed cheeses manufacturing industry avg 3.30 BLS IIF, NAICS 311513
Illinois state avg (all industries) 4.73 OSHA ITA, state-level rollup

Industry benchmarks: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Injuries, Illnesses, and Fatalities (IIF) program

Reportable Incident Timeline

Year-by-year reportable incidents (recordable injuries + illnesses + fatalities) submitted by Berner Foods - Dakota to OSHA's Injury Tracking Application. Each row anchors to OSHA's inspection records search where you can pull the underlying inspection case numbers and citations for that establishment-year.

Source: OSHA Inspection Information System (IMIS) - inspection case-number records

Year-by-Year Safety Data

Year TCR DART Injuries Illnesses Fatalities
2024 1.2 0.8 9 0 0
2022 2.2 1.7 18 0 0
2021 2.3 1.1 17 0 0
2020 4.0 2.8 30 0 0
2019 3.9 2.8 29 0 0
2018 4.7 2.3 37 0 0
2017 4.3 1.6 33 1 0

What this grade means for you

Use this grade as a relative read on Berner Foods - Dakota's reported OSHA injury record, strong versus its Processed cheeses manufacturing peers, but not a guarantee about any single site today.

  • At 98% of the Processed cheeses manufacturing benchmark, Berner Foods - Dakota reports fewer injuries than typical peers, still worth asking how safety is managed day to day. Know your rights
  • Judge this record against the wider Processed cheeses manufacturing sector, where injury rates vary widely, before comparing it in isolation. See the industry
  • Grades reflect 2016–2024 filings; check the latest establishment record straight from OSHA, or look up a different employer. Look up another

Safety grades reflect employers' self-reported OSHA Form 300A filings from 2016 to 2024 and can lag current conditions. A grade is not a guarantee that any specific workplace is safe or unsafe today. See our methodology and disclaimer.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Berner Foods - Dakota's safety grade?
Berner Foods - Dakota has a safety grade of C (Average Safety Record). This grade is based on their average Total Case Rate (TCR) of 3.2 compared to the BLS industry benchmark of 3.3 for Processed cheeses manufacturing.
How many injuries has Berner Foods - Dakota reported?
Berner Foods - Dakota has reported 173 total injuries and 0 fatalities across 7 years of OSHA data (2024, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017). This data comes from mandatory OSHA Injury Tracking Application (ITA) reports.

Similar Employers

Matched by safety record across the industry and by workforce size within Illinois - a different peer set than the category browse links below.

Similar TCR (~3.2)

Similar size (~728 workers)

Explore More Safety Data

→ More employers in Illinois → Industry: Processed cheeses manufacturing → Safety grades explained → How to check employer safety → Understanding OSHA rates
Data Source: OSHA Injury Tracking Application (ITA), mandatory establishment-level injury/illness reports. Grades compare employer Total Case Rate (TCR) to BLS IIF industry benchmarks. Data covers years reported by this establishment: 2024, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017. This is publicly available government data - not a legal determination of workplace conditions.

Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.

Related

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Data sourced from official public datasets. See our methodology for details. Retrieved and formatted by PlainSafetyScore Editorial

Every figure and grade on PlainSafetyScore is computed directly from OSHA's published Injury Tracking Application data and BLS industry benchmarks, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these safety grades, or report a data error. Data current as of 2016-2024 OSHA ITA release.