ABSTRACT
Interested and involved parties in the field of food sanitation include the federal, state, and local levels of government, manufacturers of food processing equipment, industrial processors of food, transporters of food, operators of food establishments, and consumers. The discussion and controversy surround the benefits and disadvantages of the various methods utilized to promulgate standards and regulations. A more development has been the occasional use of a third party which develops standards and regulations through a consensus process. The Environmental Protection Agency has entered into a grant project arrangement for the third party development of consensus standards relating to additives, both direct and indirect, to drinking water. The federal grant is an experiment to determine the value of the third party consensus process in developing complex standards to protect the public's health. The program is being funded by the federal grant and by industry monies.
