Product liability law requires that food manufacturers must take effective measures to provide protection against contaminants in their products. Standards such as IFS and BRC demand the full monitoring, documentation, and traceability of the processes.
S+S Separation and Sorting Technology GmbH is a global leader in the development and manufacturing of detection and separation systems with well-founded competence in a wide technology spectrum and a product range that is almost unrivalled with respect to versatility and quality. As a specialist for detection and separation technologies S+S supplies a complete product range for all process stages, product types, and conveying types, as well as for all the critical control points (CCP) of the production process from one source: Magnet systems, inductive metal detectors and separators, ferrous-in-foil detectors, and X-ray scanners.
S+S systems provide outstanding ease of operation, easy integration into production lines and highest reliability. They all meet the requirements for full traceability and complete documentation of all the quality-relevant data. Data evaluation provides information about the sources of contamina-tions and is the basis for their removal.
The S+S RAYCON product inspection system that operates with X-ray technology allows highly accurate inline detection of a great variety of contaminants such as magnetic and non-magnetic metals, glass, ceramics, stones, raw bones, and some types of plastics. Detection even is pos-sible with aluminium-packed products or with other kinds of metallic packaging. Other product defects such as broken, malformed, or missing products, clumping, entrapped air, or overweight and underweight can also be detected. Franz Penn, S+S product manager for the RAYCON X-ray scanner, says: “In the past, people often had reservations concerning the use of X-ray tech-nology in the food industry.
The new RAYCON generation, however, sets new standards with regard to detection possibilities, radiation protection, and system safety. When properly used, the X-ray scanner is totally safe both for the operator and for the products. Actual values are many times lower than the statutory limit values. X-radiation, however, is ionizing radiation, which means that country-specific regulatory requirements must be observed.
EC directive 1999/2/EC expressly permits the use of X-ray systems for contaminant inspection even for eco food. The additional value that innovative X-ray technology offers for the users qualify the additional costs of acquisition and operation.”
