User:NWall1/3-A Sanitary Standards, Incorporated

3-A Sanitary Standards, Incorporated (3-A SSI) is a trade association dedicated to advancing hygienic equipment design for the food, beverage, and pharmaceutical industries. It is headquartered in McLean, Virginia. 3-A SSI represents the interests regulatory sanitarians, equipment fabricators and food and beverage processing companies with a common commitment of promoting food safety and the public health.

3-A SSI develops voluntary consensus-based standards using ANSI procedures for equipment and accepted practices for processing systems. These standards and accepted practices govern materials of construction and design techniques. 3-A SSI also administers the 3-A Symbol program, which is a third-party food and beverage new equipment inspection program, performed by credentialed certified conformance evaluators.

History During the 1920s, the need for more stringent and uniform standards for dairy processing equipment became evident as the U.S. economy and consumers entered the modern era. Representatives of three interest groups—processors, regulatory sanitarians and equipment fabricators—recognized the need for cooperative action and introduced the first industry standards for equipment. These standards became known as ‘3-A’ standards for the three interest groups that forged a common commitment to improving equipment design and sanitation. Unlike other types of standards, 3-A Sanitary Standards relate to the cleanability of dairy equipment.

In 1944, the U.S. Public Health Service offered full cooperation with the ‘3-A program’. This marked the beginning of a program to provide uniform equipment standards for the protection of public health.

In 1954, the first processing equipment bearing the new 3-A Symbol was unveiled. By display of the 3-A Symbol, processing equipment could be shown to meet certain material, design and fabrication standards for cleanability and inspection.

In 2003, ‘3-A’ opened another era with the formation of 3-A Sanitary Standards, Inc., an independent not-for-profit corporation. One of the driving forces for organizing 3-A SSI was to modernize the consensus development process used to develop, revise and amend 3-A Sanitary Standards and 3-A Accepted Practices. Another key mission goal of 3-A SSI was to implement a new independent Third Party Verification inspection program designed to enhance the integrity of the 3-A Symbol program.

Today there are 72 3-A Sanitary Standards and nine 3-A Accepted Practices. More than 360 companies from across the U.S. and 22 other countries around the world hold authorizations to display the 3-A Symbol on various types of processing equipment.