Food Services Equipment and Sanitation

Food Services equipment is commercial equipment used for production of food intended for human consumption. Examples include oven, refrigerator, exhaust hood, coffee machines. North American market dictates for food-service, commercial kitchen, and other commercial appliance equipment to comply with applicable NSF sanitation standards, recognized by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
It is crucial to understand Sanitation requirement and basic principles necessary to design food service equipment that will be safe during intended use. For this reason the manufacturer shall consider use of the proper material related to the zone of the appliance. There are several zones that are existed in food services equipment, i.e.:  food zone, splash zone, non-food zone, power zone. Each zone has its own characteristics and requirements for the material and components used to build each zone.

Some of the standards addressing sanitary requirements are as following:

• NSF 2 (Food Equipment)
• NSF 4 (Commercial Cooking, Rethrmalizaiton, and Powered Hot Food Holding And Transportation Equipment)
• NSF 7 (Commercial Refrigerators and Freezers)
  NSF 8 (Commercial powered food preparation equipment)
• NSF 51 (National Sanitation Foundation – Food Equipment Materials)