Grower and shipper, Divine Flavor, announced today their distribution center in Nogales just received their certification for the Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program (SHARP), becoming the first produce company in the state of Arizona to be awarded this level of attainment towards their health and safety practices in the company.
Currently, Divine Flavor became the 12th SHARP site (out of 157,000 companies) in the state of Arizona, and joining a list of approximately 1,300 in the nation.
SHARP, which is offered through Arizona’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (ADOSH), is a program recognizing companies for health & safety management systems, identifying potential hazards and limiting injuries from occurring in the workplace. Divine Flavor, who for the past several years, has been taking steps to pursuing this voluntary certification and conducted their audit this past November.
“There is nothing more important than the health and safety of our employees”, said Alan Aguirre, president and CEO of Divine Flavor. “Pursuing the SHARP certification has been a company goal for many years and we’re very proud of our team to become the first produce distributor in the state of Arizona to achieve this”.
Through the challenging 2020 year, the company mentioned having SHARP implemented practices helped create ways to combat Covid-19.
Jose Antonio Martinez, General Manager of Divine Flavor, stated his team and employees were better able to adjust to new policies and procedures once the outbreak spread through Santa Cruz County due to the way their health and safety plan was created.
“SHARP teaches companies to look at potential hazards and evaluate and create protocols to protect your employees”, said Martinez. “Our managers and employees have worked very hard to get to this point, and moving forward, we will have a great opportunity to maintain this achievement and think safety first”.
Divine Flavor hosted their ceremony December 10th, in social distancing fashion, and were joined by ADOSH Director, Jessie Atencio who presented the certification.
