Fairfax County Health Department recognizes food service operators and establishments for their achievements in food safety. The following awards allow the Health Department to partner with industry to celebrate their commitment to food safety and encourage excellent practices. Learn more about our awards and how you can nominate a restaurant.

14 Carrot Gold Award

The 14 Carrot Gold award recognizes excellence in food safety practices and is awarded annually to qualified food service establishments. The recipients are selected from more than 3,400 restaurants by an awards team made up of Environmental Health Specialists.

To be eligible for consideration for the 14 Carrot Gold award, food service establishments cannot have any critical violations during inspections conducted in the last 24 months and no more than six non-critical violations in the past year. The facility also must have a valid permit to operate and be in good standing with Fairfax County Health Department.

Active Managerial Control Recognition Program

Active Managerial Control (AMC) is a preventive food safety management system. Food service managers that use AMC are proactive in reducing the risk factors that are most often responsible for foodborne illness or outbreaks. Individual food service operators who apply AMC in their facilities are recognized by the Health Department through its AMC Recognition Program.

To be eligible for recognition at the time of their inspection, an operator must demonstrate food safety knowledge and use proactive food safety practices to reduce foodborne illness risk factors, and the inspection must have no critical violations.

STAMP Voluntary Enrollment Program

STAMP [Safety Through Actively Managing Practices] is a voluntary enrollment program aimed at assessing a restaurant’s Active Managerial Control and recognizing restaurants with proactive food safety management systems. STAMP enrollees demonstrate that they have strong policies, robust food safety training, active monitoring procedures and corrective actions that allow the operators to establish control over foodborne illness risk factors.

To enroll in STAMP, a facility must have food safety policies and staff training, good inspection history, certified food managers, a passing score on a self-assessment and must be in good standing with the Health Department.