ANN ARBOR, Mich.–NSF International is celebrating its 65th anniversary. As a nonprofit, NSF creates national human health standards and certifies products to help ensure the safety of food and drinking water, dietary supplements.
NSF's began in November 1944 when two professors from the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health and a public health official from nearby Toledo, Ohio, saw a need to standardize the health requirements for commercial foodservice equipment. The transparent, consensus-based process they established to develop NSF’s first standards for the sanitation of soda fountain and luncheonette equipment became the process by which NSF developed other human health and safety standards.
Since that time, NSF has developed more than 72 American National Standards to protect food and water, dietary supplements, pools and spas, and consumer goods. NSF also tests and certifies a wide range of products including foodservice equipment, organic foods, plastic and plumbing products, water filters, nutritional ingredients, home appliances, kitchen utensils, green building materials, pool and spa equipment, and more. The organization has more than 850 employees, operating in more than 120 countries, with certification programs for multiple products.
In 1952, NSF’s Food equipment certification program launched and in 2001, NSF International launched its dietary supplement certification program. In 2004, it acquired Quality Assurance International (QAI Inc.), an organic certifier based in San Diego, and launched the athletic banned substances certification program, which builds on the dietary supplement certification program to include screening for more than 140 banned substances. Last year, NSF launched the Environmental Sustainability Program that provides carbon footprinting and accredited, third-party verification of environmental claims and greenhouse gas emissions.