Food safety certificates for food packaging equipment?

Hello everyone!

I am recently employed as a Food Tech at a engineering company that makes packaging machines (i.e. tray/box forming and sealing). 

Some Details:

The packaging machines do not have food-contact surfaces.  Part of the box/tray forming process sometimes involves a component coming into contact with the interior of the tray/box; the interior of the tray/box can become a food contact surface such as those trays holding fresh produce at the grocery store.  Thus, our manuals provide a cautionary notice to clean this component, as necessary. I would say the machines are not a high risk as they mainly get dusty (from the corrugate boxes), only handle packaging materials, and thus generally do not accumulate with food soil.  We recommend vacuuming, and cleaning/sanitizing with a cloth -- the machines are not designed for a full washed down as there are aluminium parts, and electrical control boxes that are not water-tight.

Question:

Recently, a Canadian customer made a request for a food safe certificate. Correct me if I am wrong, but It is my understanding that machines with non-food contact surfaces and that are not directly in food processing areas are exempt from or are more lenient in certain regulations. Also, a colleague tells me the CFIA (equivalent of FDA) issues an approval number for machines concerned with food-contact surfaces. My question is if there are such approvals or 'food-safe certificates' for machines concerning non-food contact surfaces (for Canada or USA)?

Thank you in advance.

Dear takijam,

Must admit I have never heard of an equipment  "Foodsafe certificate". Couldn't see any mention of this related to cfia in google.

Perhaps the intention was something like this -

http://www.nsf.org/b...ood_equipment/ 

Maybe some of our Canadian posters will know more ???

i hope that you have a manual for yr machine / purchase documents which demonstrate that it is suitable for food applications. And particularly if you are working with RTE products.

Rgds / Charles.C

I have certificates for a number of items of kit. And for those who cannot provide a certificate a declaration of conformity, to say that it is manufactured from SS 304 or 316 suffices.

I even down load the relevant information for items such as buckets etc.

I've attached the type of cert I get for pipework

Cazx

Dear Caz,

:thumbup:

The Queen of Risk Assessment.

If you can't beat them, (risk) overwhelm them.

Rgds / Charles

Thank you Charles C. and Cazx for the replies!

I also came across the nsf certified food equipment; though I think this would be something we'd consider in the future.

The suggestion from both of you to include information pertaining to the equipment's steel type, and other relevant information is great!  This will be a good starting point for me. :)

Likewise, I would be curious to hear from some Canadian posters.

Cheers!

Takijam