Third-party reviews of processing equipments' sanitary design and fabrication promise to raise the food safety bar for pumps and valves.
The act helped kick-start a change that already was underway in how food handling equipment is evaluated in terms of sanitation. Instead of allowing food equipment fabricators to self-certify, a third-party verification (TPV) program would take over the role. 3-A Sanitary Standards Inc. was created to administer the program. Among the first equipment categories subject to TPV review are pumps and valves.