How x-ray plays a critical role in ensuring food safety

Recently, our commercial and sales director, Daniel Frank, was interviewed by Potato Business about the usage of X-ray technology in the potato processing industry. From stray golf balls to loose screws, contaminants in foods are a real threat to the consumer in the potato industry, and across the entire food industry as a whole.

The power and limitations of X-ray

The key benefit of X-ray is that it is non-destructive and can be used to detect a larger range of materials than a metal detector, which of course only alerts the operator to the presence of metals in a product. And, it is non-selective of product i.e it doesn’t matter what type of food product is passing through the machine.

X-ray can be used throughout a variety of packaging options including trays, nets, bags and boxes, but problems become apparent with larger packages as the minimum detectable size becomes larger. Also, it is not a magic bullet as some materials are invisible to X-ray radiation and cannot detect every possible contaminant in a product.

Our Theia Combination X-ray Machine utilises X-ray inspection to detect contaminants such as metal, glass or bone and dispose of contaminated packs into lockable bins below; automatically removing fails from the production line. It also disposes of packages that have an out-of-tolerance weight into a separate lockable bin; so contaminated packs don’t get confused for under/overfilled ones.

At Sparc, we offer free assessments of packaging and labelling to help identify potential risks, suggest improvements and help with regulation compliances.

If you’d like a free assessment contact us here.

Or, follow the link here to read more about our Theia Combination X-ray machine.