69 11.2: Certifications
To ensure that food equipment is safe to use, the FDA has published the “List of American National Standards for Food Equipment” https://www.fda.gov/media/133482/download. The FDA relies on private, non-profit organizations that specialize in safety certification of equipment, such as the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) https://www.ansi.org/, National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) https://www.nsf.org/about-nsf/nsf-mark, and Underwriter’s Laboratory (UL).
The NSF and ANSI have established minimum standards for material safety, design, construction and product performance of:
- Food equipment
- Commercial warewashing equipment
- Commercial cooking, rethermalization, and powered hot food holding and transport equipment
- Water heaters, hot water supply boilers, and heat recovery equipment
- Dispensing freezers
- Commercial refrigerators and freezers
- Automatic ice-making equipment
- Refuse processors and processing equipment
- Manual food and beverage dispensing equipment
- Commercial bulk milk dispensing equipment
- Thermoplastic refuse containers
- Vending machines for food and beverages
- Detergent and chemical feeders for commercial spray-type dishwashing machines
- High-pressure decorative laminates for surfacing food service equipment
- Air curtains for entrance ways in food and food service establishments
- Food equipment materials
- Supplemental flooring
- Mobile food carts
- Special purpose food equipment and devices
When purchasing kitchen equipment with electrical components, a UL certification is highly recommended to ensure safety and quality. Products with the UL stamp of approval have completed rigorous testing to ensure that it is safe to use, minimizes risk of fire or electrical hazards and is in compliance with government regulations.
List-of-American-National-Standards-for-Food-Equipment-Fact-sheet
