Any manufacturer handling raw meat products faces numerous challenges every day. Ensuring that all tools are sanitary, that workers are following sanitation guidelines, and that meat is free of contaminants is a full-time job.

Chicken meat can be especially challenging to quality control. Not only do land fowl have many small, brittle bones that can easily shatter into meat-contaminating shards, they are susceptible to bacteriological contamination, and manufacturing process can introduce other contaminants into the meat as well.

To prevent foodborne illnesses, poultry product manufacturers enact many safety measures and controls. While the best defense against bacteriological contamination is the use of strong sanitation standards, how can you provide the perfect protection from physical poultry pollutants?

Using x-ray inspection for chicken products is a good place to start.

Benefits of X-Ray Inspection for Poultry Products

X-ray product inspection carries numerous benefits for poultry producers, including:

• Modern x-ray inspection machines can check multiple quality factors at once, including product weight, fat content, package fill level, and contaminant detection. This eliminates the need for separate stations, saving time on the production process.
• Reduced Costs. By eliminating the need for additional check/weigh stations, x-ray machines can help reduce CAPEX equipment costs and OPEX costs for managing that additional equipment.
• Large Range of Detectable Materials. Newer x-ray systems have incredibly sensitive detection capabilities, able to detect hollow chicken bone shards as small as 2 or 3mm in size. They can also detect rocks, rubber components, glass, plastic, and metal fragments. Metal detection systems are limited to finding metallic contaminants.
• Enhance Poultry Bone Detection. Some X-ray systems such as the Eagle PI 400HCP have been especially designed for the detection of chicken bones. These system would help dramatically reduce bone complaints by detecting and removing the contaminated chicken breasts at the source.
• Reduced Waste. Advanced x-ray systems can help to eliminate false positives caused by packaging elements (i.e. metalize foil bags) or high salt / moisture content that may confuse metal detection equipment. This reduces your food waste while maximizing productivity.

These benefits help your production line maximize their efficiency while protecting your consumers from potentially harmful contaminants.

You can download a PDF on the Eagle PI 400HCP Poultry Enhance X-ray system here.

Learn more about how you can use x-ray product inspection to help perfect your poultry production quality assurance process today!