Foreign Material Prevention

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Foreign Material Identification

It's lunchtime! You stop by a fast-food place and order a burger and some fries.

You take a bite of the burger and savor its flavour, but as you chew, you realize that there's something in there that isn't a part of the burger.

You take your index finger and thumb and reach into your mouth to pull the object out. Lo and behold, you have a short strand of hair in your fingers!

Identifying Foreign Materials

Before we go on to foreign material prevention, let us define foreign materials first.

Foreign materials are undesirable materials or objects found in food or drink products.

In the fast-food scenario we just had, the hair was a foreign material in the burger. It is not part of the burger itself and should not be consumed.

Foreign materials in food may either be naturally present in the food or something introduced during the production process.

Foreign Material Regulation

Foreign Material Prevention Regulations There are regulations based on food safety laws for foreign material prevention. Regulation (EC) No 178 / 2002 This regulation under EU law directly mentions the presence of "extraneous" materials to determine safety for consumption. Council Regulation (EEC) No 315 / 93 This regulation, also under EU law, defines contaminants in food products and provides examples of foreign materials or bodies to guard against. CPG Sec. 555.425 This regulation under the Food and Drug Administration of the United States specifies sharp foreign objects as dangerous contaminants that may cause injuries. These regulations from different countries explicitly mention foreign materials and how to regulate them. This is important because foreign materials are dangerous contaminants.

Conducting risk assessment in the food industry involves investigating the processes in food production and identifying where hazards come from, in this case those involving foreign materials.

The first step is identifying risks and risk factors. In the case of foreign material prevention, the hazards are foreign materials or objects. Examples of these endogenous and exogenous materials are in the previous lesson.

The second step is analysing and evaluating the risks and risk factors. At this step, the production line or food preparation process is studied to identify where foreign materials can enter.

The last step is controlling risks and risk factors. After identifying the risks, it will be easier to create steps to prevent foreign materials from contaminating the products.

Foreign Material Prevention Program Methods