We talked last time about giving credit to the fresh-cut industry for the prevention investments they've made in the food safety battle. Kudos to them for the GAPs, GMPs, and HACCP implementations that really are providing large benefits to the safety of our food.
The part of this prevention effort I know about is in the detection and removal of foreign material (FM) and product defects from a stream of fresh-cut product. This prevention doesn't come cheap up front, but the paybacks can come quickly, not only in recall prevention, but also in labor reduction and quality improvements. GAPs can help prevent some FM from coming into the process line, but any outdoor crop will have the inevitable evidence of some creature being present. Whether by land or by air, insects, birds, animals and humans all have the potential to leave items behind in a growing area, and those items can be picked up during the harvesting process, and tranferred to the processing plant.
How do we get rid of FM? Washing will remove some, but do you really want to put FM in your wash water? Most HACCP plans would specify removal of FM prior to any wash to avoid potential contamination. But, using people to inspect your product prior to wash is the last thing you can afford to do, if you can even find them to start with.
Of course, there is a pretty good solution today, and that is to use an automated sorter, which uses a nearly magical combination of mechanical, electronic, optical, pneumatic, and software components to detect and remove FM and product defects. This sounds pretty complicated, so how do you know what is really required? We'll cover those basic needs and functions next time.
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