Cheese, natural (except cottage cheese), manufacturing · Minnesota

Prairie Farms

Rochester, MN · ~70 workers · 3 years of OSHA Injury Tracking Application data.

D
Poor Safety Record
5.6
Avg TCR
3.3
Industry avg
0
Fatalities
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The verdict

Prairie Farms runs at 169% of its industry's injury rate - more dangerous than the typical Cheese, natural (except cottage cheese), manufacturing workplace, earning a grade D.

Prairie Farms: 5.6 TCR = 169% of Cheese, natural (except cottage cheese), manufacturing BLS 3.3 · 3y Form 300A (see methodology below)

Prairie Farms safety composite

Prairie Farms scores strongest on dart rate (safer than 62% of same-industry peers) and weakest on total case rate (tcr) (safer than 43%), blended into one 0-100 breakdown against same-industry peers. A missing measure drops out and redistributes its weight rather than deflating the score. This is a per-dimension breakdown, distinct from the single letter grade above it (which weights TCR alone against the BLS industry benchmark).

D

52/100

Percentile-weighted across 3 of 3 measures

Total Case Rate (TCR)
D 5.59 per 100 workers

Safer than 43% of industry peers

DART rate
C 1.81 per 100 workers

Safer than 62% of industry peers

Fatalities
D 0

Safer than 51% of industry peers

Benchmarked live against every credibly-rated employer in the same NAICS industry code in the current OSHA extract (a segment must have at least 8 rated peers to benchmark). Not a legal or compliance determination; PlainSafetyScore's own weighting (TCR 40%, DART 35%, fatalities 25%).

TCR Δ

−5.7

2017→2019

Prairie Farms injury rate improved

Prairie Farms's TCR fell 5.7 from 9.9 in 2017 to 4.2 in 2019. Peak filing year was 2017 at 9.9 TCR. In 2019, DART was 0.32× this establishment's average TCR (severity share of cases).

2017=9.9 · 2018=2.7 · 2019=4.2

OSHA ITA Form 300A scorecard

Establishment book 311513 · Rochester, MN ABOVE-IND · SMALL

Grade D · TCR 5.6 · 169% of ind

  • DART 1.8 DART
  • RANK #12/24
  • PHOTO Bunker Hill Cheese C…
  • BOOK 3y book
  • INJ 14 inj
  • SIZE ~70 FTE

Nearest TCR peer: Bunker Hill Cheese Company LLC (0.0 TCR gap)

Read with this employer → · Industry book → · Minnesota employers → · Look up another →

Prairie Farms in the TCR neighbourhood

Average Total Case Rate among this establishment and nearest same-industry peers

TCR

What this shows Prairie Farms averages 5.6 TCR (169% of the Cheese, natural (except cottage cheese), manufacturing BLS benchmark).

Source U.S. Department of Labor, OSHA Injury Tracking Application (Form 300A) As of 2026-08-25

Prairie Farms TCR series: 2017=9.9 · 2018=2.7 · 2019=4.2 · BLS 3.3

Where Prairie Farms falls in its industry

377 Cheese, natural (except cottag establishments

Safer than 43% of graded establishments in this industry, whose median TCR is 4.9.

More dangerous than peersSafer than peers

Narrower to Minnesota alone (the establishments it most directly competes with for workers and contracts): ranked #12 safest of 24 Cheese, natural (except cottag employers in Minnesota.

Prairie Farms (70 employees, TCR 5.6) among 29 same-industry peers, split at the industry median of 130 employees and a TCR of 4.9 2×2 strategic matrix plotting 30 entities by Average employees (X) and Total Case Rate (Y), with a crosshair dividing the plot into four quadrants. Larger & higher-riskSmaller & higher-riskLarger & saferSmaller & safer than peers 0200400600800 05101520 Average employees Total Case Rate Prairie Farms
Prairie Farms (70 employees, TCR 5.6) among 29 same-industry peers, split at the industry median of 130 employees and a TCR of 4.9

Prairie Farms has fewer employees than the Cheese, natural (except cottage cheese), median and a higher injury rate than the industry's median TCR of 4.9. Workforce size and injury rate do not always move together within the same industry -- some of its smaller peers run higher rates than its larger ones, and vice versa.

Year-by-Year Safety Data

Year TCR DART Injuries Illnesses Fatalities
2019 4.2 1.8 6 1 0
2018 2.7 1.3 2 0 0
2017 9.9 4.2 6 1 0

OSHA ITA peer cross-reference

Establishment peer ledger

311513 · MN · Rochester

377 Cheese, natural (except cottage cheese), manufacturing employers nationwide with a credible TCR · 15,828 rated employers in Minnesota with headcount on file · 290 employers in Rochester, MN · 4 cross-state NAT-TCR peers · 4 cross-state NAT-SIZE peers. Closest matches by relationship code are listed below.

Rel Establishment Metric
NAICS-TCR Bunker Hill Cheese Company LLC 5.6 TCR
NAICS-TCR Nuestro Queso Hispanic Cheese Makers 5.7 TCR
NAICS-TCR Hummelstown, PA 5.5 TCR
NAICS-TCR Lactalis Heritage Dairy 5.7 TCR
STATE-SIZE Harmony 70 FTE
STATE-SIZE St. Cloud Service Center 70 FTE
STATE-SIZE H2I Group 70 FTE
STATE-SIZE Northern Valley Machine 70 FTE
CITY-NEAR Mayo Clinic Rochester 38,233 FTE
CITY-NEAR Olmsted County 1,304 FTE
CITY-NEAR Mayo Collaborative Services, LLC 1,051 FTE
CITY-NEAR FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS 823 FTE
NAT-TCR Fas Ric 5.6 TCR
NAT-TCR Tops 451 5.6 TCR
NAT-TCR Lebanon Health Care Center 5.6 TCR
NAT-TCR M. W. Nelson and Associates 5.6 TCR
NAT-SIZE New Products Corporation 70 FTE
NAT-SIZE Insource Performance Solutions at Cummins Rocky Mount 70 FTE
NAT-SIZE Short's Brewing Company Production Facility 70 FTE
NAT-SIZE LA Mega Parts Distribution Center - Compton 70 FTE

Rel codes: NAICS-TCR · STATE-SIZE · CITY-NEAR · NAT-TCR/NAT-SIZE cross-state. Read with this employer →

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: 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.

Data sourced from official public datasets. See our methodology for details.