By: Andrea Palazuelos, MS (United States)
Independent Consultant in "Clear Food Safety Solutions"
Advice to food plants inside and outside the USA
Each year in the United States, the percentage of situations where the product is recalled for foreign material is higher than for other microbiological or allergen reasons.
Foreign materials, or also known as physical contaminants, are among the most common reasons for consumer complaints and recalls.
The best way to prevent the presence of foreign materials is to follow a prevention strategy, creating as much as possible a team of people from different functions and areas (quality, production, maintenance, engineering, etc.); having a multidisciplinary team will benefit any company or organization, because each person may have different views and knowledge about possible foreign materials found in a product, as well as various ideas to prevent their presence.
Another important factor is training to raise awareness among staff and to be closely aware of the type of foreign materials that can occur during the process. An example of training may be to share with employees the type of consumer complaints related to physical contaminants or materials foreign to the process. When these materials can be recovered from consumers and shown to plant workers, this causes a change in attitude to prevent it from happening again.
Most physical contamination problems can be detected internally and are best corrected immediately, even if they affect the cost of production and before they go to the consumer. For example: Implement selection, retention, inspection, and other activities. This, although costly, can prevent the loss of customers.
Foreign materials are a risk not only to the consumer but to the reputation of the brand, as they can be perceived by the consumer as the result of a non-sanitary process.
Some countries have no tolerance for foreign materials, one or two similar complaints can result in a mass recall.
Foreign material prevention can also be achieved by properly implementing and maintaining prerequisite programs such as: Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), housekeeping, pre- and post-operational inspection, glass and plastics listing, 5 S implementation, etc.
In addition to the practices already mentioned, there are equipment that can be used in production plants to detect and prevent foreign materials, such as: Metal detectors, X-ray equipment, filters in liquid tanks, magnets, sieves, container inspectors.
Products of agricultural origin may have foreign materials inherent to the product, other contaminants may originate from the process, or from materials in the production areas, and may also originate from the operators themselves. The controls depend on the source of the foreign materials, but not all of the above are applicable to all of them. The approach should be preventive, and be able to select the appropriate detection systems, but not consider them the only solution.
Pros and Cons of Foreign Material Detection Equipment
Detection equipment can often become the cause of contamination if not properly maintained. For example, a worn sieve can be a source of metal. Not always the equipment can detect all types of foreign material, often their installation is not adequate, validation is not adequate and they have little sensitivity for good detection.
You must have a reaction and correction process once you find the presence of foreign materials using the mentioned equipment and be able to find the root of the problem,
Handling of foreign materials requires comprehensive and multi-point management, including that ingredient suppliers have clear expectations about the quality of the product they supply, selection and inspection of ingredients, screening, use of magnets if possible use of metal detector, reject system,
BPM, control de insectos, uso de palets en buen estado, lista de verificación, prevención durante el mantenimiento, diseño de equipos adecuados, implementación del sistema HACCP, evaluación de procesos de envasado y reciclaje, formación, verificación de equipos.
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