Cheese (except cottage cheese) manufacturing · Illinois

Cheese Merchants of America

Bartlett, IL · ~246 workers · 8 years of OSHA Injury Tracking Application data.

F
Failing Safety Record
6.9
Avg TCR
3.3
Industry avg
0
Fatalities

The verdict

Cheese Merchants of America runs at 209% of its industry's injury rate - far more dangerous than the typical Cheese (except cottage cheese) manufacturing workplace, earning a grade F.

F
Failing Safety Record
6.9
avg TCR · per 100 workers
3.3
industry benchmark (BLS)
161
recordable injuries tracked

Grade compares Cheese Merchants of America's OSHA Total Case Rate to the BLS industry benchmark across 8 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

Cheese Merchants of America's yearly Total Case Rate, against the 3.3 industry benchmark.

051015 20162018201920202021202220232024 3.93.3 Industry benchmarkCheese Merchants of America TCR
Total Case Rate (recordable injuries per 100 full-time workers), OSHA ITA Form 300A. Industry benchmark: BLS IIF, NAICS 311513.

Where Cheese Merchants of America falls in its industry

386 Cheese (except cottage cheese) establishments

Safer than 32% 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 #8 safest of 8 Cheese (except cottage cheese) employers in Illinois.

Cheese Merchants of America has an average TCR of 6.9, which is 209% of the industry average (3.3) for Cheese (except cottage cheese) manufacturing. This is significantly worse 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 Cheese Merchants of America

Between 2016 and 2024, Cheese Merchants of America's Total Case Rate improved from 8.5 to 3.9 recordable injuries per 100 full-time workers, a 54% decrease across 8 years of OSHA reporting.

The safest year on record was 2021, at a TCR of 1.1, while 2019 saw the highest rate, at 12.4, a spread of 11.3 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 8 reporting years, Cheese Merchants of America recorded 161 total injuries and illnesses, with no fatalities reported in any of those years. Readers comparing establishments should weigh the 8-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 Cheese Merchants of America'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 - Cheese (except cottage cheese) 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.

21 DART incidents × 200,000 ÷ 1,082,744 hours worked = 3.88 DART

Methodology: 29 CFR 1904, OSHA Form 300A recordkeeping

Cross-Validating Context, Establishment vs Industry vs State

Benchmark TCR Source
Cheese Merchants of America (this establishment) 6.89 OSHA ITA Form 300A, 8-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 Cheese Merchants of America 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 3.9 3.9 21 0 0
2023 6.0 4.9 11 0 0
2022 7.5 7.5 20 0 0
2021 1.1 0.0 3 0 0
2020 3.5 1.8 8 0 0
2019 12.4 12.4 28 0 0
2018 12.2 11.9 43 0 0
2016 8.5 7.9 27 0 0

What this grade means for you

Use this grade as a relative read on Cheese Merchants of America's reported OSHA injury record versus its Cheese (except cottage cheese) manufacturing peers, not a verdict on whether any single site is safe today.

  • At 209% of the Cheese (except cottage cheese) manufacturing benchmark, Cheese Merchants of America reports more injuries than typical peers, ask specifically how the employer is reducing them. Know your rights
  • Judge this record against the wider Cheese (except cottage cheese) 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 Cheese Merchants of America's safety grade?
Cheese Merchants of America has a safety grade of F (Failing Safety Record). This grade is based on their average Total Case Rate (TCR) of 6.9 compared to the BLS industry benchmark of 3.3 for Cheese (except cottage cheese) manufacturing.
How many injuries has Cheese Merchants of America reported?
Cheese Merchants of America has reported 161 total injuries and 0 fatalities across 8 years of OSHA data (2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2016). 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 (~6.9)

Similar size (~246 workers)

Explore More Safety Data

→ More employers in Illinois → Industry: Cheese (except cottage cheese) 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, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2016. 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.