On December 16th 2021, PPO and Food Safety Tech presented a webinar titled, “Food Safety Hazards Series: Physical Hazards.” This webinar was presented by Scott Ruttgaizer, Product Manager at PPO; Maria Fontanazza, Editor-in-Chief at Food Safety Tech; Shawn Stevens, Food Safety Consultant and Lawyer at Food Safety Counsel, LLC; Casey Gallimore, Director, Regulatory & Scientific Affairs at North American Meat Institute; and Chris Sawyer, Director, Continuous Improvement at Brakebush Brothers.
Shawn Stevens kicked off the webinar with the current landscape of foreign matter contamination in food products. He introduced common physical hazards found and trends in USDA food recalls. Then Casey Gallimore explained the meat industry’s efforts to reduce the occurrence of foreign material in meat and poultry products. She also shared NAMI’s resources to respond to a foreign material incident. Next, Chris Sawyer shared how Brakebush is approaching foreign material detection. Finally, Scott Ruttgaizer explained how detection works. He shared how food processors can use detection and compared the different approaches (e.g. X-rays, metal detectors). Scott finished the webinar by explaining how PPO’s Smart Imaging System uses hyperspectral imaging for foreign material detection.
Click below to watch a recording of the webinar. Interested in a particular speaker or topic? Here are the approximate start times for each speaker: