In today’s food processing industry, maintaining the highest safety standards isn’t an option; it’s a requirement. But juggling safe working standards and a clean environment along with ever-changing regulatory demands and consumer expectations can feel impossible, especially without the right equipment to streamline operations. X-ray technology can be a game-changer, revolutionizing the safety and efficiency of your facility.
You already know that X-rays can detect pieces of metal, but can a food X-ray detect foreign objects in liquids? Indeed, it can. Let’s explore how this technology is reshaping the detection of contaminants in liquid food processing.
Challenges of Detecting Contaminants in Liquids
Detecting contaminants in liquids presents unique challenges, far different from those in solid foods. For starters, the inherent properties of liquids, including their various densities and flow characteristics, complicate detection efforts. Without the right technology, hazards like glass shards, plastic pieces, and bone fragments can go unnoticed inside an unsuspecting can of soup, placing your consumers at risk.
Your packaging can also impact the accuracy of your foreign material detection. Some packaging materials, particularly high-density metals, can throw off X-ray machinery if they rely on density imbalances, allowing contaminants to hide from the detection system.
Because of this, you must use highly advanced, food-grade X-ray inspection systems that can adapt to different liquid types and packaging materials. With this type of technology, you pre-program the density of your liquid, the material of your package, and other details.
How Food X-Ray Technology Works for Liquids
A food X-ray can detect foreign objects in liquids by emitting a small amount of radiation that penetrates liquid foods to capture detailed images of the product. This process looks for density differences between the product and potential food contaminants.
When the X-ray penetrates liquids on the production line, it loses some of its electrons, though it must lose even more electrons to penetrate dense areas containing contaminants as this requires more energy. When the X-ray stream returns to the other side of the sensor, the sensor reads the energy signal and translates it into a grayscale image, depicting the liquid’s internal content based on the density of the electrons lost. This complicated process essentially shows you all the foreign bodies inside the liquid product.
X-ray technology excels in areas where traditional methods, like metal detectors, cannot. Whereas a metal detector can only locate metallic objects, X-ray systems can locate and identify all kinds of materials. Your facility faces far more risks than metal scrapings, so you need a comprehensive liquid packaging inspection process that can locate and distinguish between organic and inorganic compounds, including plastics, bones, glass scrapings, etc.
Because of this density inspection process, X-ray machinery adapts to many types of liquid products, making it an invaluable system for facilities processing everything from liquid drinks to dairy products, sauces, soups, and more.
The Types of Foreign Objects X-Rays Detect in Liquid Food
Food X-ray systems can detect a wide range of contaminants in liquids, including the following:
- Bone fragments: These often appear in soups, broths, and other animal-based products. These tiny fragments can cause serious harm to the consumer.
- Glass: Whether from broken packaging or equipment, glass shards can sneak into many types of foods. X-ray systems excel in detecting even the smallest fragments of glass.
- Stones and other organic materials: Stones, pebbles, grass, pieces of hair, and other organic materials may inadvertently enter liquid products during the harvest process or other early production stages. You must identify such items to protect consumers and your facility’s reputation.
- Plastics: Traditional metal detectors cannot identify dangerous contaminators like PVC, Teflon, and other types of plastic, but X-ray imaging technology can.
- Ferrous and non-ferrous metals: X-ray inspectors can also detect many types of metal contaminants, including foil.
X-rays also identify the type of material you’re dealing with by calculating the contaminant’s density to help you distinguish between organic and inorganic materials. This enhances the overall precision and accuracy of the reports you receive.
The Benefits of Using X-Ray Technology in Liquid Food Inspection
Not only can a food X-ray detect foreign objects in liquids, but it can do so with phenomenal precision, accuracy, and efficiency, helping you enjoy the following benefits:
- Higher accuracy than traditional methods, especially when detecting small and non-metallic objects. You need this level of accuracy to keep consumers safe and protect your facility from lawsuits.
- Enhanced safety and compliance with food safety standards, helping you adhere to FDA and HACCP regulations.
- Increased efficiency, as X-ray systems can detect contaminants without slowing down product lines, allowing you to improve your throughput and product quality simultaneously.
Looking at Real-World Applications of X-Ray Technology in Liquid Food Inspection
Let’s look at a case study to see how X-ray technology can help liquid food processing facilities achieve measurable results in real-world applications.
Around 2014, a popular salad dressing manufacturer decided to examine its inspection technology more closely. The manufacturer primarily used pipeline metal detectors that could efficiently scan pressurized liquids but failed to provide adequate safety assurance in the post-production process and could not test contaminants without wasting a significant amount of product. HACCP regulations require contaminant testing, so the manufacturer lost a lot of products to test contaminants using the old metal detector technology, which required a redundant filtering process.
The salad dressing manufacturer ultimately upgraded to twelve X-ray inspection units that could locate contaminants inside the liquid dressing and test them in a way that eliminated the product waste. Now, the facility could pinpoint a wide range of contaminants beyond metals, increasing consumer safety while reducing facility waste. With the new inspection setup in place, the facility was able to conduct remote contaminant testing, making the system far easier to maintain and operate moving forward.
Considerations for Implementing X-Ray Systems in Liquid Food Processing
When implementing a food X-ray to detect foreign objects in liquids at your facility, we recommend keeping the following factors in mind to help you select the right third-party X-ray services:
- The type of liquid you’re scanning: All liquids have distinct characteristics, so be sure to select an X-ray inspection system that can work for your materials. For example, dairy products require settings that are different from clear juices.
- Your product packaging: Tin cans will scan differently than clear plastics. Again, you must ensure that the X-ray system you invest in will work for your products.
- Your existing production line systems: Ideally, your X-ray machinery should integrate flawlessly into your production line. Consider where you want it to inspect items along the production process, then ensure the system can fit with the rest of your machinery.
After investing in an X-ray inspection system, you must set it up and adjust it correctly for precise results. You must also adequately train your staff and perform regular maintenance to enjoy sustained efficiency.
Choose the Reliable and Effective Detection Method
Modern X-ray technology offers the highest precision in liquid food contamination detection, ultimately keeping your consumers safe. If you want to protect your brand and customers, you must invest in a reliable food X-ray system to detect foreign objects in liquids. Explore our state-of-the-art X-ray inspection systems at TDI Packsys or contact us today at (877) 834-6750 to learn more.
