The North American Meat Institute has announced new "Food Safety Equipment Design Principles" to address food safety hazards for all equipment used in meat and poultry businesses. 

The risk of contamination of food products by pathogens and foreign material can be managed by equipment design. Optimizing design and performance criteria for equipment and related systems by implementing industry-wide recommendations used in these design principles will reduce contamination and meat industry recalls, which were undertaken for businesses to address various food safety hazards, but may also work for similar wet cleaning food operations. 

The official booklet includes an introduction and a glossary with other information on certain principle elements. Also available is a spreadsheet version of the checklist that automatically calculates the overall score, which is also downloadable.