Approximately 48 million people in the United States (one in six) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die each year from foodborne diseases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Consequently, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) is transforming the nation’s food safety system by shifting the focus from responding to foodborne illness to preventing it.

As part of the focus on preventing foodborne illness, 3-A Sanitary Standards, an independent, not-for-profit corporation for advancing hygienic equipment design for the food, beverage, and pharmaceutical industries, has recently updated its standards. The company, which maintains a large inventory of design criteria for equipment and processing systems developed to promote acceptance by USDA, FDA, and state regulatory authorities, no longer accepts “3-A compliant” as a legitimate claim.

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