3-A Sanitary Standards, Inc. (3-A SSI), a community of regulators working together to develop criteria for the hygienic design of food processing equipment, recently released its 2012 Annual Report. The report highlights the organization's success in expanding and enhancing the recognition of 3-A Sanitary Standards, 3-A Accepted Practices and the 3-A Symbol in the food manufacturing industry.

IDFA is one of the five founding members of the 3-A program, and Jonathan Gardner, IDFA vice president of regulatory affairs and international standards, is a member of the Executive Board and Steering Committee. Gardner attended the 3-A SSI annual meeting last week in Milwaukee.  

Here are a few of the highlights for 2012:

• Participation in the 3-A Symbol program reached the highest total since the new Third-Party Verification inspection was introduced in 2003;
• A new Student Travel Scholarship Awards program allowed students to participate in 3-A SSI's annual education program and learn about sanitary design for food processing equipment and systems;
• 3-A SSI developed a new "A-level" standard for design, materials of construction and fabrication techniques for dairy and other food and beverage equipment that require a high level of sanitation; and
• 3-A SSI attained re-accreditation by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) as a Standards Developer Organization.

Read the annual report here.

Since 1956, the 3-A Symbol has been used to identify equipment that meets 3-A Sanitary Standards for design and fabrication. Voluntary use of the 3-A Symbol on dairy and food equipment assures dairy companies that equipment meets sanitary standards, provides accepted criteria to equipment manufacturers for sanitary design and establishes guidelines for uniform evaluation and compliance by sanitarians.

For more information, contact Gardner at jgardner@idfa.org or (202) 220-3544.