Processors’ keen attention to food safety keeps hazards such as wood chips, glass, plastic and bones from entering the product stream. Attention to good manufacturing practices and preventive maintenance along with efforts to keep the physical hazards from entering the production environment are key, says Donna Schaffner, associate director of food safety, quality assurance and training for Rutgers Food Innovation Center, in Bridgeton, N.J. Screens, bone collectors, metal detectors and X-ray machines are used whenever possible.
“My clients are getting ready for the new FDA regulations and already adopting a more rigid system of monitoring, documenting and auditing those preventive controls, which will mitigate possibility of foreign material getting into finished product,” Schaffner says.