(May 13, 2009 - FALLS CHURCH, VA.) Columbus [Ohio] Public Health has been selected as the recipient of the 2009 Samuel J. Crumbine Consumer Protection Award for Excellence in Food Protection.

For 54 years, the Crumbine Award, named for one of the most renowned public health sanitarians in the United States, has been presented to a local public health unit by a jury of leading environmental health officials and public health sanitarians and is the most prestigious recognition that a public health unit can receive. Crumbine winners serve as models for other public health and safety programs across the nation.

2009 Crumbine Award Jury Chair Lila Wickham of the Multnomah County [Oregon] Environmental Health Services (the 2006 Crumbine Award winner) said, “Columbus Public Health described a visionary, innovative, collaborative and practical food safety system with multiple partnerships and strengths. The program has already received international, national and local recognition and is deserving of the prestigious Crumbine Award.”

“We were thrilled in Columbus to learn the Crumbine Award Jury had selected our program as the 2009 recipient,” said Keith Krinn, Columbus’s environmental health administrator. “The credit for the recognition goes out to our field staff, the backbone of our Food Protection Program, where the interface with our customers takes place. Also, the success of our food protection effort would not be realized without our partnerships with our community, the foodservice industry and especially our own Columbus Board of Health. We are truly honored and humbled by the recognition associated with the Crumbine Award.”
 
 Columbus Public Health will receive the Crumbine Award at the Annual Educational Conference of the National Environmental Health Association, June 21-24 in Atlanta. Award presentations will also be made at the annual meetings of the International Association for Food Protection, July 12-15 in Grapevine, Texas, and National Association of County and City Health Officials, July 29-31 in Orlando, Fla.
 
The Crumbine Award is supported by the Conference for Food Protection, in cooperation with the American Academy of Sanitarians, American Public Health Association, Association of Food & Drug Officials, Foodservice Packaging Institute, International Association for Food Protection, National Association of County and City Health Officials, National Environmental Health Association, National Restaurant Association Solutions, National Sanitation Foundation International and Underwriters Laboratories Inc.
 
 For more information about the Crumbine Award, please contact Lynn Dyer at ldyer@fpi.org. A copy of Columbus’s award-winning application may be found on the FPI Web site at www.fpi.org.