X-Ray: A Solid Investment To Improve Food Safety And Quality

By Erik Brainard , President

Food safety, brand protection and an overall commitment to satisfying the consumer are all key aspects to producing a quality food product. There are many levels to food safety from pathogen traceability to physical contaminant detection with the overall goal to provide consumers with the safest food available. Quality control personnel have a daunting task to keep our food safe and their respective brands free from negative press.

X-Ray technology is a proven solid solution for eliminating physical contaminant detection concerns. This relieves the quality control team to focus on other aspects of the food safety paradigm. X-Ray systems dedicated to food inspection have been around the industry for over 20 years. Within the past 9 years, significant advancements in detection accuracy, speed, pricing, and most importantly, reliability, have allowed this technology to become a proven warrior against the physical contaminant concerns. Metal, glass, stones, and bones are introduced to the food chain in various ways. Glass can be introduced when a beer bottle is tossed from a car into a farm field and picked up by the harvesting equipment. Bolts and other metals can enter during the raw material transportation process. Hypodermic needles are broken inside the animal by veterinarians when administering medications. Small metal shavings or sieve wires are introduced when processing equipment fails. And of course, bones from pork, beef or chicken, are introduced during processing with the wish bone being an important bone to detect due to its inherent choking hazard for children. One should consider the consequence of just one major contaminant recall to your business; fixed and unquantifiable costs.