The Fourth of July is a time for celebration, fireworks, and BBQs. In backyards across the country, families and friends will come together to fire up the grill for hamburgers and an estimated 150 million hot dogs. But keeping food safe begins well before the groceries are bought and unpacked. In fact, it starts even before the food hits the grocery store shelves—at the food processing or manufacturing facility. There, our dedicated sanitation team members and their partners in the industry play a crucial, yet often overlooked, role in securing the nation’s food supply.

At PSSI, we offer a unified solution that eases our customers’ stress from food safety management while delivering a more successful result—more than 1 billion servings of food protected daily.

Food can become contaminated without proper cleaning and sanitation procedures at processing and manufacturing facilities, leading to foodborne illnesses, large-scale recalls, or both, and seriously damaging a company’s reputation. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that annually in the U.S. around 48 million Americans get sick from a foodborne illness with 128,000 requiring hospitalization and 3,000 dying.

Our food safety sanitors excel at working with our customers to ensure that food processing facilities and warehouses stay safe and clean and take that extra step to help prevent any food contamination, including designing customized sanitation plans and providing food safety and microbial mitigation expertise. Our 8-Steps of Sanitation Process and Real-Time Performance Metrics platform underpin all of these efforts and are essential to our ability to execute successful sanitation daily. In turn, our customers can begin their workday with the highest confidence level.

We know that the sanitation and cleaning of food processing facilities is fundamental to keeping our food supply safe. Our team members are proud of the part they play and take their responsibility to the American people seriously—and without them, there would be cold grills and empty picnic tables this Independence Day.

To all our  team members, valued customers, and their families, have a wonderful and safe Fourth of July!