Cargill St. Clair Improves Contractor Safety While Saving Hundreds of Hours of Manual Work Annually

Industry

Food & Beverage

Region

USA

Solutions

Contractor Safety

View case study

About Cargill

‍Headquarters: Minneapolis, Minnesota

Industry: Food Production

Region: United States

Domain: Food Sourcing, Food Production, Food Transportation

Services: A global leader in food, agriculture, and industrial solutions, Cargill offers a diverse range of services that connect producers and consumers worldwide. Their operations encompass agricultural origination, processing, marketing, and distribution, as well as providing animal nutrition, food and beverage ingredients, and risk management solutions.

Among its facilities around the world, Cargill, operates a salt manufacturing facility in St. Clair, Michigan. With an average of more than 100 contractors on-site daily, the plant must uphold the highest levels of operational safety and compliance. As the site embarked on a major expansion, contractor management became even more critical.

Challenges in Compliance Management

Cargill is committed to sending every person who comes to work home safely every day, including contractors. This requires a robust contractor management program, along with effective processes and systems to support. There were some notable challenges, however, facing the company and St. Clair. Contractor oversight processes were manual and required considerable time to manage. For example, training was tracked using shared Excel spreadsheets and multiple database, leading to reactive decision-making.

The Avetta Approach

In 2020, as part of Cargill’s partnership with Avetta, the St. Clair site adopted Avetta’s Contractor and Worker Management solutions, marking a turning point in how the plant handled compliance and safety. Transitioning from a legacy system, the Environmental, Health & Safety team at St. Clair led a site-wide introduction of Avetta, taking advantage of training resources, internal guides, and Avetta’s support team to engage contractors and the Cargill operations team.

As part of the rollout, Cargill St. Clair uploaded their site-specific contractor training materials into Avetta, enabling remote completion by contractors before arriving on-site. This pre-arrival training system transformed onboarding from a time-consuming, in-person session into a flexible and trackable digital process.

Perhaps most impactful was the integration of Avetta data into the site’s custom Pre-Job Hazard Analysis (PJHA) Power App. Each morning, Avetta syncs compliance data to the PJHA system, giving real-time visibility into contractor company and worker status. Contractors who are out of compliance — such as those with expired training or insurance — are automatically flagged and cannot be assigned work until the non-compliance is corrected. Site managers are alerted instantly, which prompts timely conversations and prevents safety risks before they arise.

‍

Key Benefits

Enhanced Safety Performance
Cargill St. Clair has reported zero contractor injuries since 2022 — a milestone achievement for a facility of its size and complexity. A robust contractor management program, enhanced by utilization of the Avetta platform, has contributed to this performance. The integrated systems ensure that every contractor is fully trained and compliant before setting foot on-site. With real-time visibility enabled by Avetta, potential risks can be identified and addressed proactively.

With compliance tied directly to site access and job eligibility, safety is no longer a back-end process — it’s embedded in every contractor interaction.

Improved Operational Efficiency
With Avetta, St. Clair has also been able to make the contractor verification process more efficient and overall, more effective. Contractors complete training remotely, and their status updates in the system in real time, enabling immediate verification through the PJHA app.

This improvement saves hundreds of hours annually, freeing EHS personnel to focus on higher-level safety strategies rather than administrative tasks. Even mid-job contractor information updates are now managed easily with automated notifications and clear approval protocols — often handled directly from a manager’s phone on the plant floor.

Stronger Contractor Engagement and Accountability
The Avetta system has helped to strengthen relationships with contractors, fostering a sense of shared accountabilities that has led to higher standards across the board.

For major projects like the plant expansion at Cargill’s St. Clair facility, general contractors have been given visibility into Avetta, allowing them to pre-screen subcontractors and enforce compliance standards from the outset. The result is a leaner, more informed contracting process where quality and safety are non-negotiable from day one.

Conclusion

Cargill St. Clair’s transformation from manual compliance tracking to a fully integrated ecosystem has set a new benchmark for contractor management for the company. In addition to reducing contractor onboarding time by more than 90% and improving safety performance, Avetta has helped to ensure that qualified contractors are assigned to all work activities.

"Avetta's compliance tool has greatly improved our contractor management by ensuring all contractors meet Cargill's requirements and their workers are fully trained before starting work on-site. This tool has relieved us from constant monitoring, making the process seamless and efficient. It also allows us to halt operations for non-compliance and prevent unqualified workers from being available in our digital pre-job planning tools.”

Sebastien Cournoyer

Plant Manager