Food Safety Focus | Foreign Matter

Food Safety Focus

Hello All!

I hope this message finds all of you and your families safe and well.

This food safety focus will focus on Foreign Matter.

Foreign matter in the food industry has been defined as: any kind of outside contaminant introduced to a food product at any point in its production or distribution. Foreign matter can come from many sources and we must be very careful that foreign matter does not get into the products we care for. What types of foreign matter concerns are there in a storage and distribution environment and how easily could something contaminate the products we handle? That is a very good question!

Think about those plastic curtains hanging down in the doorways of some of our rooms, which are used to help control the temperatures in those rooms. Those plastic curtains slide across the tops of all products carried through that doorway and into the room. Grease from forklifts or breakaway pieces of the plastic curtains can easily affect products carried through the doorways, if we are not careful. These plastic curtains must be inspected regularly to make sure they stay clean and in good repair.

Wood shavings from pallets double stacked together, water from roof leaks, grease or metal parts from forklifts, and metal from racking, walls and ceilings are also common sources of foreign matter. The list goes on and on. The reason all lights in the warehouse should be either shatterproof or covered with a shatterproof lens is to keep glass from ever getting into the products we store. Even jewelry and other objects worn on the person could end up getting into products and cause a problem, if we are not vigilant. Not everything we store is boxed and taped, but even if it is, we still need to be careful, please.

Foreign matter makes up a large portion of costly recalls that happen each year, so please be sure nothing gets into our food that doesn’t belong there.

Thanks, for all that you do every Day!

Justin
Food Safety Manager

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Author: Trish Metts