Plastic Found in Food Product: What to Do Next

Plastic products have changed the food industry—in fact, processing and packaging food has never been easier or more cost-effective. With that said, plastic is also another physical contaminant food manufacturers must worry about more than ever before. How can producers detect and manage the growing challenge of plastic in food?

The Growing Challenge of Plastic in Food Products

Today, plastic is one of the most common items found in a food plant. It’s an essential part of the food manufacturing process. This increase in the use of plastic at the plant level has created a new set of problems for food manufacturers. The numbers speak for themselves:

• In 2016, food recalls due to contamination by plastic more than doubled in North America.
• In 2018, plastic was the #1 cause of physical food contamination in the United States.
• The most common products plastic is found in are chicken and bakery products—together, they account for more than 60% of plastic contamination-related recalls.
• In early 2019, an Ohio-based food company recalled nearly 120,000 pounds of frozen beef patty products after it was found that their product was possibly contaminated with thin blue pieces of plastic.

With each recall, companies lose millions of dollars, both directly through hard costs and indirectly through lost sales and/or loss of brand confidence. For the modern food manufacturer, plastic can be a cost- and time-saving material—and at the same time, a contamination risk. Learning how to manage the risks of plastic contamination is the safest way for food manufacturers to navigate the future.

How to Detect and Prevent Plastic in Food

One of the biggest challenges with plastic is that once it contaminates a food product, it’s difficult to find. In fact, of all the physical contaminants that enter food, plastic is the most difficult for inline X-ray systems to detect because of its low relative density. Food plants that use inline metal detectors won’t detect plastic unless it has been infused with metal to create a metal-detectable plastic.

This information doesn’t mean plastic contamination can’t be detected before subjecting manufacturers to a costly recall (or worse). When different departments within a company work together, they can ensure the effective handling of plastic during the food manufacturing process and put necessary checks and balances in place to minimize the risk of contamination.

Here are 3 ways food plants can detect and reduce the risks associated with the use of plastic.

1. Choose High-Density Plastics

Opting for high-density plastics improves detectability when physical contamination occurs. While more expensive, higher-density plastics carry some long-term benefits for food manufacturers.

Most manufacturers use low-density polyethylene plastics because they’re a low-cost solution and they’re effective in high-pressure operations (and for CIP-able processes). However, the perceived benefits of these plastics have a downside: because they have a lower density than water, they’re virtually impossible to find when they contaminate food. While water has a rating of 1 SpG or specific gravity, polyethylene plastics have ratings of less than 1.

Choosing higher-density plastics, even at a slightly higher cost, will greatly improve your ability to detect any plastic contamination that occurs.

2. Audit Plastic Tools and Materials

Since traceability plays a significant role whenever a contaminant is detected, a thorough audit of plastic tools and materials used during the manufacturing process should be conducted. The audit allows QA managers and safety supervisors to identify what risks are present in the plant and determine what could be replaced with more detectable alternatives. 

This could include:

• Using plastic that contains a detectable additive like metal to make it easier to find through inline metal detection systems.
• Color-coding detectable plastic — by restricting the use of certain colors in certain areas, you’ll know exactly where to trace fragments that end up in your product.

Knowing which tools and equipment put your food product at risk for contamination allows you to create an effective plan for providing greater detectability without compromising the performance of your machines.

3. Use Third-Party X-ray Inspection Services

Although the standard inline X-ray inspection machine will not detect plastic, that doesn’t mean you’re out of options when it comes to foreign material contamination. As a third-party X-ray food inspection service provider, FlexXray specializes in locating physical contaminants, whether they’re plastic, rubber, glass, bone, metal, stones, product “clumps” or something else.

Since we’re completely dedicated to finding contaminants, we’re able to slow down the process, allowing our custom technology to focus on each and every piece of the product. This allows us to identify contaminants quickly, separate out the suspected product, and resolve the situation so your remaining product can continue on through the proper distribution channel.

As plastics become increasingly more prevalent in the food manufacturing process and supply chain, the risk of plastic contamination increases. Knowing how to reduce the threats of contamination in your plant, and what steps to take if you suspect contamination has occurred, can prevent you from facing a costly food recall.