How do customers know the food they buy is safe for consumption? Similarly, how do retailers manage food quality control to ensure the products they stock are safe for sale? Questions like this echo through the food processing and packaging supply line, from the farm to the fork. Part of the answer is an unbroken chain of regulatory compliance and verification. Developing and following your food safety plan is central to these initiatives, and X-ray detection is one of the primary technologies used to prevent escapes of contaminated food. Here’s a Brief Guide to Food X-ray Detection.
Why Choose Food X-ray Detection?
Food X-ray detection systems can provide significant benefits. They enable compliance with governmental regulations and retailer quality standards, while ensuring the highest levels of consumer safety. These measures can reduce the risk of product recalls and potential litigation by putting quality and food safety first.
There are many advantages from an operational standpoint too. X-ray systems can be configured for routine inspection of packaged goods of varying size or shape, even at high line speeds. In addition to the primary food safety application, X-ray inspection systems can detect anomalies such as missing or damaged products and components in packages.
How Food X-ray Detection Works
X-ray inspection systems detect based on density differences between contaminants and the product. X-rays are simply light waves that we can’t see. They have a very short wavelength, which corresponds to a very high energy. As X-rays penetrate a food product a certain proportion of them will be absorbed. A dense area, such as a contaminant, will absorb more energy than the food itself. Those X-rays that pass through the entire product reach a detector which converts the X-ray energy into visible light, and then into an image of the interior of the food product. Foreign matter appears as a darker shade of gray and helps identify foreign object contaminants.
Configurations vary, but food X-ray detection systems generally use high voltage X-ray tubes rather than radioactive isotopes to generate images.
An additional operational advantage of food X-ray detection is that this data can be fed into real-time software capable of automated good/bad decision making, fully automating the contaminant screening process.
X-ray Detection Sensitivity
Results vary depending on a range of factors, including product thickness, density and texture, detection software, line speed, detector pixel size and detection optimization. Most food X-ray detectors offer best results in controlled environments, and performance may drop off for high-density, highly textured products.
Selecting Food X-ray Detection Systems
There is no universal detection solution for food quality control processes. The same goes for food X-ray detection systems. There are various types to choose from depending on your operational and application needs. Sophisticated X-ray detection systems may offer advanced inspection capabilities for various common quality problems, including missing pieces and components and under- and overfills. Others are optimized for the challenges associated with detecting foreign objects in cans and bottles.
For an overview X-ray inspection system types, view this product comparison table.
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