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The 3-A SSI team is on its way home after a successful exhibition at the IAFP Annual Meeting in Cleveland. We made dozens of new friends at the event. We connected with top industry, governmental, and academic food safety professionals who stopped by the 3-A booth. We saw a few familiar faces, while most discovered 3-A for the first time.
While participating in several of IAFP’s Professional Development Group (PDG) meetings, the 3-A team learned there is a very strong interest in hygienic design training amongst food safety professionals and regulators. It was a great opportunity to showcase the 3-A Hygienic Design e-Learning Modules.
“IAFP participants had good questions about their operational challenges,” says Meri Beth Wojtaszek, Executive Director of 3-A SSI, “and our team was able to connect problems to solutions in existing 3-A Standards. There’s just no beating the credibility of peer-to-peer conversations.”
3-A held a series of “mini sessions” in its booth, attracting participants to many of the sessions.
In addition to Wojtaszek, Eric Schweitzer, Director, Standards & Certification, was onsite from the 3-A staff to lead these mini sessions in the 3-A booth.
Wojtaszek and Schweitzer explained the connection between 3-A Standards and the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance (PMO) to many attendees. Equipment that is in conformance with relevant 3-A Standards is also compliant with the PMO. That means regulators and processors alike can have confidence in the equipment. They don’t have to inspect it to know how it performs.
“IAFP participants had good questions about their operational challenges, and our team was able to connect problems to solutions in existing 3-A Standards. There’s just no beating the credibility of peer-to-peer conversations.”
Sometimes regulators and processors see red flags that give them reason to question the validity of a 3-A Symbol. In those situations, an online tool from 3-A can reveal whether a 3-A Symbol claim is legit. We showed processors and regulators how to tell a fraudulent 3-A Symbol from one that is legit – in less than 60 seconds – using the 3-A online tool.
More than 40 students and faculty stopped by the 3-A booth to learn about curated resources to help them succeed. The new 3-ASSI student resources include information about the Dr. Ron Schmidt StudentTravel Award, training, and tools to help them achieve their career goals. New 3-A faculty resources include curriculum support and opportunities to forge industry partnerships and for professional development for educators.
We also met with other groups thinking about the next steps in their careers. This includes professionals who are curious about becoming a 3-A Certified Conformance Evaluator (CCE) and experienced sanitarians, inspectors and regulators interested in shaping the future of 3-A Standards as a workgroup participant or 3-A committee member. If you’re interested in learning more about becoming a CCE, please contact Eric Schweitzer at erics@3-a.org.
3-A will exhibit at PACK EXPO, September 29 to October 1 in Las Vegas. Watch for information about our booth soon.
Register now for the final two sessions in the 3-A SSI 2026 Fall Webinar Series. (You'll get a link to see the first session too!)
Five groups are kicking off, five are deep in technical review andone proposed update is already open for comment.
At the EHEDG World Congress in Vienna, Austria, 3-A SSI Executive Director Meri Beth Wojtaszek saw how putting working groups and their volunteers front and center can energize a field. Here's what she brought home and how 3-A SSI plans to spotlight its updated standards at the 3-A SSI 2027 Summit on Hygienic Design.
At PACK EXPO 2026, conversations at the 3-A SSI booth kept circling back to confidence, easy access to information and new ways to get involved. Here's how to put those takeaways to work before the year ends.
