Global Events

EHEDG participating in the 3-A SSI 2023 Education Event & Annual Meeting

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EHEDG participating in the #-A annual meeting in 2023m

Enhancing our collaboration

We, Hein Timmerman, Patrick Wouters and Adwy van den Berg, as representatives of EHEDG, are pleased to share the experiences from the recent 3-A SSI 2023 Education Event & Annual Meeting. During this event we had the opportunity to engage with various hygienic design subject matter experts, including the valued leaders of the 3-A SSI organisation. We had motivating and thought-provoking interactions with Tim Rugh, the Executive Director, Eric Schweitzer, the Director of Standards & Certification, and Rick Heiman, the Chair of the 3-A SSI Board of Directors.

In the photo, from left to right: Dr. Patrick C. Wouters (Global Hygienic Design Lead at Cargill and EHEDG Vice-President), Tim Rugh (Executive Director at 3-A SSI), Hein Timmerman (Global Sector Specialist at Diversey and EHEDG President), Rick Heiman (Corporate Hygiene Dairy Farmers of America Director  and Chair of Board of Directors 3-A SSI), Adwy van den Berg (EHEDG Operations Director)

 

For those of you who are not familiar with the 3-A SSI organisation (3-a.org), the 3-A standards were first established in the 1920s by regulatory sanitarians, equipment fabricators and processors in the United States. Today, 3-A SSI continues to advance food safety through hygienic equipment design, offering design criteria, certification programmes and knowledge resources.

The educational days of the annual 3-A SSI meeting centered around the theme of "Reducing Risk in Your Facility", exploring topics such as "Materials of Construction & Surface Finish", "Hygienic Specification & Inspection Methods”, "Hygienic Design Failures" and gained insights from the USA regulatory perspective and hygienic equipment design experts.

EHEDG recognises the importance of strengthening our relationship with 3-A SSI for several reasons. Our cooperation plays a vital role in communicating an unambiguous message to the global food industry regarding food safety and quality management by design. This is of outmost importance to various stakeholders such as legislators, equipment manufacturers, end users, the food ingredients and food producers.

Given the similarities in our approaches towards design, engineering and cleaning in food plants, EHEDG,with its global reach, aims to coordinate its capabilities and knowledge with 3-A SSI. We were delighted to see EHEDG extensively referenced during the conference, and we take pride in the fact that EHEDG is prominently mentioned in the 3-A SSI standards, further solidifying our position as a valuable partner for hygienic design overseas.

It has been agreed to organise more regular meetings in the coming months to further discuss and enhance our collaboration. We are looking forward to fruitful discussions.