New Era of Smarter Food Safety Arrives: How Inspection Tools and Technologies Align with the Approach

January 15, 2020

As the U.S. Food and Drug Administration prepares to issue a strategic blueprint for the New Era of Smarter
Food Safety in early 2020, food and beverage manufacturers – including dairy companies – can align with this new approach by focusing on deploying cutting-edge tools and technologies and strengthening their organizational food safety culture.

FDA’s New Era of Smarter Food Safety, introduced last year with an extended comment period through the end of 2019, aims to foster leadership and innovations in keeping food products safe with modern processes, including technologies that prevent physical contaminants from tainting foods or causing consumer injuries. Advanced x-ray technologies are part of this smarter approach to food safety, with machines designed for specific and often harsh environments.

For example, a smart x-ray technology for the dairy industry is the new Eagle Pack 400 HC 3-A Dairy system. The machine meets stringent 3-A sanitary standards, including IP69 ingress protection, and is built with sanitary design features based on principles from authorities like NAMI, NSF, ANSI and others. The system design, which prevents the trapping or harboring of any material, is ideal for unwrapped blocks of cheese and is paired with powerful software that provides easily stored, viewed and transferred information. “As part of FDA’s new initiative, manufacturers are encouraged to have tech-enabled traceability and smarter tools to prevent food safety hazards and vulnerabilities. This can be achieved through the use of multifunctional x-ray systems, including those tailored for specific industries like the Eagle Pack 400 HC 3-A Dairy machine,” says Christy Draus, Marketing Manager for Eagle Product Inspection.

The Eagle Pack 400 HC 3-A Dairy x-ray system, as with other x-ray solutions from Eagle, also fits with the FDA’s goal of promoting food safety culture within a manufacturing facility. “In a top-down way, having such tools in place demonstrates a commitment to safety, from company leaders who invest in systems visible on the production line to employees trained to operate and monitor the system to retail or foodservice customers who ask for assurances of preventive measures,” Draus remarks.

Eagle Product Inspection will be exhibiting at the CheeseExpo, booth 1705, in Milwaukee from April 14-16.