According to FlexXray, plastic overtook metal as the most frequently reported physical contaminant in the 2026 survey, cited by 37 percent of respondents.

The report also found that 63 percent of producers relied on in-house resources to manage foreign material events.

Meanwhile, the share of producers planning to increase investment in detection technologies declined from approximately 70 percent in 2025 to 57 percent in 2026. FlexXray reported that respondents’ confidence that in-line detection equipment catches all foreign material remained flat.

The findings indicated a potential gap between the types of foreign materials manufacturers reported encountering, and the contaminants their detection equipment was designed to identify.

“For three years now, this report has given food safety and manufacturing leaders real industry data to benchmark their own programs against,” said Kurt Westmoreland, Chief Commercial Officer at FlexXray. “This year’s findings cover how often facilities are dealing with foreign material events, how confident they are in their detection equipment, how they’re investing, and how they respond when an event happens.”