The safety of meat continues to be a challenge, mainly due to the ever-increasing line speeds and customer expectations that are approaching zero tolerance toward any irregularities. Listeria-free fresh meat is being requested in the market, and even small pieces of soft plastic can cause major recalls, loss of reputation, and loss of business for meat producers. In this article, the authors present new approaches to addressing well-known and emerging challenges from physical and microbiological risks in the meat industry.
Foreign material is an ongoing issue in food plants. The food safety foreign material plan must consider types of foreign materials, effectiveness of detection devices, and rapid screening of food safety device kick-outs. Tools to enhance investigation of these materials are equipment component mapping, defined burst limits, and protocols to restart the line.
Foreign bodies are a large risk to the food and drink industry with authorities recalling products due to foreign-body contamination. Learn how a strong food safety culture can help a company implement best practices in avoiding such events.
As Chairman of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, Congressman Krishnamoorthi initiated an investigation into toxic metals in baby food to find alarming levels from a variety of companies. In response, the Congressman has introduced the Baby Food Safety Act. In addition, the FDA responded to the Oversight investigation by introducing their “Closer to Zero” campaign, but the campaign does not go far enough nor fast enough.
A new approach for significantly improving detection probabilities and reducing the need for manual verification of foreign material contamination of food products is described.
Microplastics include particles of varying size, shape, and chemical composition that contribute to contamination of the environment and the food supply.
Foreign material is introduced in two ways: via raw materials and internally by the production process. They offer different challenges and require specific strategies to address them.
As the food production environment should not be a source of biological, chemical or physical contamination, the different steps to mitigate those risks will be examined in terms of hygienic zoning.