FAQs
Is X-ray safe for our product?
Scientific evidence shows that X-rays don’t harm food. A 1997 study by the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that radiation levels up to 10,000 gray don’t affect a food’s safety or nutritional value. This dose is around ten million times stronger than that used in food inspection.
Food that’s been X-rayed is indistinguishable in every respect from food that hasn’t. It’s as good and tasty to eat as it was before it was scanned and there are no measurable changes to flavors, textures or nutritional values.
What’s more, the amount of radiation production staff are exposed to while operating an X-ray system in the food industry is far less than the amount we absorb from naturally-occurring background radiation.
Radiation levels used for X-ray inspection in the food industry are extremely low and have no effect on a food’s safety, flavor, texture or nutritional value. Moreover, the use of X-ray inspection equipment is both highly regulated and operates within very high safety limits. Providing operators follow safety guidelines, modern X-ray systems provide a perfectly safe working environment within the food industry.
In reality, the real risk to human health comes from physical contaminants. Therefore, as X-ray inspection provides unrivaled detection and rejection of a wide range of contaminants, including glass, metal, minerals, stone, calcified bone, and high-density plastics and rubber, it should be regarded as a force for improving food safety, not reducing it.
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Our product is frozen. How do you ensure the temperature is maintained?
We are located in a 120,000 square foot, climate-controlled facility with dry, frozen and refrigerated capabilities. We have a multilevel safety system which includes frequent temp monitoring of the product and the area and alerts to several staff members if the temp should drop or rise by more than 2 degrees. Storing your product in this environment vs. a reefer truck drastically reduces the potential for compromise.
Why do people send product for X-ray?
There are several reasons people send product for X-ray. Here are a few examples:
As an additional line of defense in ensuring the quality of the product
An incident occurred and you are looking for something specific
Failure of metal detection/several hits in a short period of time
Machinery has worn down over time and pieces are chipping or has been damaged during production
How do we know the results of the inspection assignment?
We will provide you with a digital report for easy importing to your system. This report can include as little or as much identifying information about your product that you need and also shows the temp and pass and fail rate from individual pallets and batches, allowing you to narrow down the problem areas in production.
How do we know you can really detect what we’re looking for?
We provide a fast and free evaluation which includes a digital image of your product for your review allowing you to see what we see. This also shows just how small of sizes of contaminants we will be able to detect.
We produce USDA product, can you help us?
Yes! We are well versed and up to date on all the requirements for 3rd party X-Ray inspection for all USDA FSIS product including AMS. We are housed in a USDA FSIS approved climate-controlled facility, so sending and receiving product is easy. We have a strong relationship with our local USDA inspectors and know exactly what needs to be done to be sure we are always compliant when handling USDA product.
How long will it take to inspect my product?
This is determined by many factors including the amount of product to be inspected, the method used for inspection and the amount of rejects detected throughout the process. Even with all these factors, we always consider shelf life and customer order fulfillment needs. We know the importance of getting your product back to you as soon as possible.