Food Equipment Joint Committee 9/10 August 2023

Another Food Equipment Joint Committee (JC) meeting is in the books. The 2023 meeting had great attendance, utilizing a split format between in person and online. The room was packed with no open seating available and almost 100 additional attendees online.

We saw some big changes to the JC this year, saying goodbye to two long standing committee members; Girvin Liggans and Dan Opsahl. Thank you for all your contributions over the years, your presence and participation will be greatly missed.

Since the previous meeting, a new member has joined the committee. Robert Sudler (FDA) welcome to the team! We look forward to collaborating and working with you on future topics.

The JC is also looking for new members from all three categories, to ensure we have a balance of members from Industry, User and Public Health.

This year’s meeting featured a report out from a number of working groups on open issues, member votes on several proposals, report outs from the FDA and NAFEM and the presentation of a number of issue papers and informational papers. The committee voted to send all issue papers to the task groups for further review and investigation. The common themes discussed throughout the meeting included Standard 25 vending machines and a series of material discussions. For vending machines, the hot topics were the discussion of refuse holding and how the standard defines refuse and automatic shut off controls. Other topics discussed included woven fabric materials in the food zone, PFAS/PFOS, bisphenols and an interesting discussion on the use of reusable products in place of traditional dinnerware.

Next year’s JC meeting is scheduled for October at NSF HeadQuarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We look forward to the opportunity to connect with all our industry partners and continue the work of updating and maintaining all the Food Equipment Standards once again.