FlexXray Foreign Material Hall of Fame: Dairy

Step into the exciting dairy wing of the Foreign Material Hall of Fame, where some of our most shocking, surprising and interesting contaminants are immortalized. The threat of foreign material contamination is always looming even when producers and manufacturers think it’s not. The following stories are not isolated events. They happen to dairy producers all of the time. Think your product is free of metals, plastics and rubber? Our customers did too. The difference between our clients and other producers is simple: they partner with FlexXray. They know that we are their best line of defense against foreign material contamination and that we find materials inline machinery and processes often miss.

#1: Bolting Down Nutrition

Location: Virginia, USA

Meet our first Hall of Fame entry. This customer is a manufacturer that creates widely distributed health supplements containing dairy. After several in-line hits, they partnered with FlexXray to ensure what was hitting the shelves was safe and contaminant-free. To their surprise, on top of routine metal hits we found a 34mm x 9.86mm metal bolt thanks to our innovative inspection process. We sent them a detailed report pinpointing where the material was with measurements and material type. This report is highly beneficial to the customer’s manufacturing process because they are now aware of an issue potentially affecting more products.

$ Saved:Approximately $98,000

#2: The Cheddar Cutter

Location: Minnesota, USA

Our second entry from the dairy Hall of Fame is a North American industry-leading producer. They produce dairy products found in most grocery stores across the nation. They sent us their cheese products for X-ray inspection and what we found was shocking. This 87mm x 3mm piece of metal was found in an unsuspecting wheel of cheese. Imagine a consumer cutting or biting into delicious cheese only to find this! The ramifications could have been detrimental for both the retailer and our customer. Partnering with FlexXray helped defend them against a massive lawsuit or recall, ultimately saving them time, valuable product, brand reputation, and money in the long run. This is one of the many reasons FlexXray customers come back time and time again.

$ Saved:Approximately $230,000

#3: A Piece Metal For Every State

Location: Alabama, USA

The following entry is an intriguing one. This international brand partners with FlexXray for its North American manufacturing facilities. Across one truckload (of 4 total inspected) of product, we found more than 50 pieces of metal ranging from 1.7mm to 23.65mm in size. Shocking right? This is an all too familiar story for our findings in the dairy industry. While the foreign material contaminants are across a spectrum of sizes, they do not belong in any dairy products. FlexXray’s innovative process and technology find things like the metals in this project that inline machinery often misses and can locate tiny specimens difficult for the naked eye to see. The need for FlexXray is not only critical for your dairy products; it’s urgent. You have goods that need to get to market, and we have the services that ensure what makes it to the shelves is the highest quality. 

$ Saved:Approximately $445,000

#4: Tied Up In Dairy 

Location: Montana, USA

Last but not least, introducing the interesting case of how both plastic and metal contaminated this solid form dairy product. Our customer is an umbrella organization that produces some of the nation’s most popular dairy products. They depend on FlexXray because we custom calibrate our system to find the small plastic and metal pieces that can come from anywhere on the production line. One of the plastic specimens in the sample below was 63.84mm x 4.97mm, which is staggering. The fact that they missed this foreign contaminant is further evidence that inline machines can only find what meets their calibration criteria. Even then, they are likely to miss the tiny pieces of metal or plastic that FlexXray can find.

$ Saved:Approximately $325,000

It’s clear that foreign material contamination is a significant concern for dairy producers because of the detrimental effects it can have on brands, facilities and consumers. Even worse, it can end in costly lawsuits that damage reputations. If you want to make sure your product is thoroughly inspected, FlexXray is an unbiased solution. At FlexXray, we have pioneered a cutting-edge X-ray inspection process that allows us to precisely locate foreign materials. Better yet, our reports are extensive. They detail pallets, batch/lot numbers, the time that we found it, contaminant type and size so you can stop the guesswork. The last thing you want is for your customer to find a foreign material contamination Hall of Fame dairy wing member in their product. It’s time you partnered with FlexXray. Call us at 817-803-2659.