Bulk Flow X-ray Inspection: Providing Protection For High-Value, Unpackaged Food Production

By Bob Ries, Lead Product Manager, Metal Detection and X-ray Inspection, Thermo Fisher Scientific

Nuts, seeds, dried fruits and dozens of other fresh, bulk food products are fetching sky-high prices of late due to demand and supply issues caused by the drought in California. That is causing their growers and producers to revisit their processing operations as they clean, sort and package these
products.

What’s needed are reliable ways to maximize production while eliminating contaminants. This requires extra diligence, including the use of advanced inspection equipment to remove foreign objects. Gone are days of error prone human inspection or wasteful processes such as discarding partially clean products to avoid further inspection costs.

The overarching requirement: Avoid waste. When almonds and other nuts are so valuable that thieves are stealing truckloads of them, you don’t want to be robbing yourself with inefficient production techniques.

It’s a complex matter that requires a disciplined, thoughtful approach. Among the areas worth exploring is how your operation can effectively remove unwanted material from your products from the very beginning of the processing chain through the final packaged products – and with minimal waste of these ever-more-valuable food items.