A Multi-Pronged Approach to Preventing Foreign Material

Foreign material contamination of food and beverage products remains a nearly literal thorn in the industry’s side — but it isn’t a thorn that is being brushed off and dismissed. Companies continue to look to technology, research and equipment manufacturers to find new ways to either prevent foreign material from entering the product stream or detect it before the product enters commerce.

Technological advancements have come quite far in recent years in finding smaller pieces of detectable materials in denser food items, or finding previously undetectable materials. But for those who have been around the industry long enough, innovation seems to have plateaued a bit.

“One of the most significant challenges facing food processors is detecting low-density plastic fragments in the product stream,” explains Ismael Martinez, manager-food equipment, for NSF (www.nsf.org). “Unlike ferrous metals, which can be readily detected with magnetic systems, plastic (particularly low-density varieties) is virtually invisible when using most detection systems.”

The industry has gotten quite good at detecting ferrous materials down to less than a millimeter in size, whether via traditional metal detection or X-ray inspection, which can find even smaller pieces of material. However, in the words of one presenter during the May Food Safety Summit, those super-tiny bits of metal that are being detected aren’t likely to even be noticed by the human consuming the product in many cases.

Certainly, metal shards shouldn’t be found in consumables — and they shouldn’t be ignored, as a tiny shard could be an indicator of a growing fault in equipment up the line. But maybe the time spent on the race to detect smaller and smaller could be turned toward solving the issue of how to detect the troublesome materials, like plastic, rubber, miniscule bones, etc.

And that’s where the plateau currently sits — the industry continues to push the envelope on innovation in finding certain materials, but some items continue to be a real challenge. In meat and poultry processing, small bone fragments can still pose problems, even though current technology does a better job than it did a decade or two ago. Across categories, plastic continues to be a real challenge. And now processors have even more incentive to find a solution, Martinez adds.

“[It’s] a critical food safety vulnerability, especially as the general public is increasingly concerned about exposure to PFAS and microplastics,” he says. “Meanwhile, plastic in food products is now responsible for many recalls.”

Seeking solutions

A recent visit to the Food Safety Summit in May shows the industry’s focus remains sharp, with inspection and detection equipment and strategies on display and discussed during presentations and roundtables. The key challenge for successful operations, most experts say, is finding foreign materials without overdoing it, in a sense.

“System sensitivity can lead to false positives that disrupt production and waste materials,” Martinez says. “The industry must focus on enhancing detection capabilities while implementing rigorous preventive measures throughout production.”

Preventing materials from entering the product stream in the first place has been a shift in recent years that has truly taken hold with operators. The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), with its mandate on developing responsive plans to contamination, certainly has done its share of prodding processors this way, Martinez says.

“Much of the industry has shifted towards ‘prevention first,’ although detection remains a critical safeguard,” he says. “The most forward-thinking organizations are embedding preventive controls throughout the food production process, from supplier assessment and material selection to production design and employee training.”

Indeed, companies have turned to improved maintenance schedules and execution, a tighter focus on making sure employees aren’t wearing or using items that could be dropped into the product by accident and innovations in material construction (such as metal-detectable materials used to make gloves, gaskets, etc.). And although detection and inspection systems help take those tasks off the humans in the plant, a prevention mindset forces plants to re-engage the workforce to take the lead on foreign material contamination issues.

“A robust prevention strategy, tied to a strong food safety culture, can support greater prevention and detection,” Martinez says. “This heightened focus can empower employees to identify and address potential contamination risks before they materialize into actual issues or recalls.”

Building out that approach within the processing facilities can help release some pressure that industry might feel to push innovation faster rather than letting it take its course. Metal detectors, X-ray inspection systems and other foreign material-sensing machinery and equipment will always be a necessary food safety hurdle, but with the correct strategies in place, these can be part of a checks-and-balances tactic to keep foreign material out of the product — and keep product moving through the supply chain safely to the end user.

“A greater focus on prevention can reduce struggles with materials that cause recalls,” Martinez concludes. “Tackling contamination at the source can be more effective and economical than detecting and rejecting contaminants once they are in the product stream.”