Plan Automation Technology Blog

Blueberries are an incredibly popular fruit these days. Packed with both flavor and antioxidants, this "miracle fruit” is used in all kinds of snacks, desserts, and other sweet foodstuffs.

In recent years, the popularity of “organic” foods have grown immensely. Many consumers go out of their way to purchase organic foods at the market now. In fact, according to one time.com article, “Sales of the additive-free offerings surged 11.5% in 2013, to #35.1 billion.”

With demand for organic fruits, vegetables, and meat products on the rise, many food companies are looking for the ability to add the “organic” label to their products.

Because having the organic label can be a big boost for a product’s success, one question that Plan Automation’s customers often ask is “will x-ray inspection affect my product’s organic status?”

The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, or FSMA, is a large-scale reform of the USA’s food safety laws that was signed into law on January 4, 2011 that is designed to create new standards for food safety practices. As stated on the FDA’s website, the FSMA “gives [the] FDA new mandates, authorities and oversight tools aimed at providing solid assurances that those practices are being carried out by the food industry on a consistent, on-going basis.”

So, if the FSMA was signed into law four years ago, why are we talking about it today? There are a few reasons:

Integrating customized, fully detectable components along a production line is one of the most effective ways for manufacturers to ensure their product quality and safety. Compatible with any installed x-ray and metal detection systems, these components serve as food-safe, easily identifiable replacements for standard production facility tools.

In previous posts, we’ve discussed the benefits of metal detectors and of   x-ray inspection machines for quality assurance. Each type of product inspection equipment has its own benefits and drawbacks, and both technologies have continued to improve over time, with inspection machines becoming more capable.

In the Lanaudiére-Laurentides region of Central Quebec is the Boulangerie St-Donat bakery. This bakery makes roughly 12,000 pies and 3,000 cakes every day Monday through Friday, which are then distributed to grocery stores major chain retailers throughout Canada.

Sometimes, perception of the amount of product in a package is just as important as the actual weight content of the package. When a customer opens up a bag of, say, potato chips and sees that the package is less than half full, they’re not going to be pleased, even if the package has the right content weight.

Customer complaints are a fact of life for pretty much any business. Even in the packaged food industry, where direct interaction with the end user is rare, customer complaints still occur.

Historically, x-ray product inspection machines have been excellent at detecting foreign bodies in products, with a few notable limitations. Some of these limitations included:

X-ray product inspection systems have been a staple of the quality assurance process for the food industry for a while now. The normal use of these machines is to check products for foreign contaminants such as: