Finding foreign bodies — learn how to protect your brand

Foreign bodies found in food by the consumer can not only create an unexpected and negative consumer experience, it can also have a huge impact for the manufacturer — especially with today’s accessible and widespread social media channels.

Metal can come in contact with food during the manufacturing process and can therefore contaminate product. Manufactures then need to find the source of the metal, which can take many hours and result in loss of production time.

Handheld X-ray fluorescence (HHXRF) technology now allows you to conduct spectral fingerprints of your production line to determine the source of the metal contamination for quick action and repair.

Metal can also come into food products from the consumer, for example, dental fillings or can openers. These types of metals will not be present during the food manufacturing process; rather, they’re introduced when the consumer possess the product. A quick check with HHXRF can easily determine the true source of contamination, avoiding unnecessary conflict, time and money.

Similarly, glass found in food can be quite disturbing to the consumer. HHXRF allows you to obtain a glass register within your factory. A quick check against the glass register using HHXRF will determine if the glass fragment is factory-related or not.

Further, in conjunction with HHXRF, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) technology can be used to identify foreign bodies from a reference library of organic matter. It is accurate, fast (60 s) and requires little or no sample preparation. FTIR can also be used for product authentication against known samples.

In your plant, can you reliably identify metal and glass foreign bodies using HHXRF analyser technology or identify organic matter through FTIR technology? Do you want to know more about how to protect your brand?

Raymond White, who developed Nestle Oceania’s Foreign Body Identification program in 2004 and is currently responsible for Zone AOA (Australia, Oceania, Africa), Nestle Quality Assurance Centre Laboratory Safety Champion and Foreign Body Identification expert Nestle Oceania, is presenting  ‘A new era in Foreign Body Identification — learn how to protect your brand’ as part of foodpro’s seminar series. Raymond’s presentation will be held during foodpro at 2 pm on 17 July in the seminar room on level 3 of the ICC exhibition building. All sessions are free to attend, with no bookings required.

With six zones, each dedicated to the various steps in the food manufacturing process — ingredients, food science and technology, processing equipment, plant equipment and packaging, plus the new supply chain integrity zone — foodpro is a must-attend event for every food and beverage manufacturer in Australia and New Zealand.

The exhibition will run from 16–19 July at the International Convention Centre, Darling Harbour, Sydney. For more information, visit foodproexh.com.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/crimson