The National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) is a US non-governmental, non-profit organisation responsible for developing standards, certificating products and education in all matters of public health and safety. They took over registration of lubricants and lubricant components for incidental food contact from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) almost 10 years ago. The registrations are the category codes H1 and HX1 respectively and products listed against these codes are then identified by brand name and manufacture in the NSF white book. This is accessible via the NSF website, www.NSF.org, on the non-food compounds page.

Also on this page are the NSF registration guidelines, which provide the form that must be completed in order to apply for inclusion in the white book. Amongst the requirements for this application is the need to establish the quality of oil or component to the relevant regulatory reference, such as FDA 21 CFR 178.3570 (a) for lubricants with incidental food contact.

SIP have a number of medicinal (SIPMED) and technical (SIPTECH) white oils that have been registered for H1 and HX1. See white book listings on www.nsf.org/usda/psnclistings.asp.

There are a number of other categories in the NSF system, including HT1 and HTX1 for heat transfer fluids. Fees for registration depend upon the nature of the application.