Food Quotes
50 Famous Food Quotes
February 1, 2024
Join us at Food Safety Summit 2024
March 13, 2024
Food Quotes
50 Famous Food Quotes
February 1, 2024
Join us at Food Safety Summit 2024
March 13, 2024

Food IndustryWhat Kind of People Are Needed in the Food Industry?

In the food industry, there is a great deal of discussion about food safety programs, good manufacturing processes, HACCP requirements, government regulations and consumer satisfaction.  But if the right kind of people aren’t administrating, watching over and guarding all these things, then what’s on paper doesn’t mean a great deal.  That means that not every candidate for a job will truly be qualified simply because they have a degree in food safety, whether it’s a bachelor’s degree, master’s degree or even a PhD.  In fact, there are times when you might consider hiring someone who doesn’t have a degree further than a high school diploma.

In the food industry, you might consider using the following acrostic when you’re evaluating the people on your production team.  Perhaps your efforts will go on without a HICCUP:

HONESTY

Finding an employee who is honest may seem like a no-brainer, but honor is a hard-to-come-by character trait to find.  In general, the culture in the U.S. has shifted from an objective truth-based society to a thought process that often assumes that “my truth” may not be the same as “your truth.”  In other words, what you think is important is what is critical to each person on the line.

An honest team member follows the guidelines of your HACCP plan and helps guarantee your product makes it safely to the marketplace.  He or she will never be afraid to tell you what’s wrong on the production line, or what needs improvement.

INTEGRITY

Another closely related trait is integrity.  The definition of integrity is “firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values.”  fromf integrity isn’t the kind who steals a little bit here and there from the company.  And it means your team members are looking out for each other and placing the needs of others above their own. They are not likely to let things slide that should be taken care of “right now.”  Ultimately, they want your customer to be treated the same way they would treat themselves.  Integrity is especially important to us here at Regal Packaging Services.

CONSISTENT

Consistency is a character trait that helps define the safety of your product.  If what everyone does is the same every time, then not only will your team be consistent, but so also will be the quality of your product.  It’s the reason Henry Ford first developed the assembly line.  He knew that a well-oiled production process would produce a consistent, quality car.

You’ll have the same benefit.  When the customers pick your brand off the shelf, they will be certain of what they’re getting.   And you know you’re getting a full day’s work from the team.  They clock in on time and are willing to work a full schedule without wasting time.

Consistency is what we help our clients to achieve with DetectorAudits.

CAUTIOUS

Great care needs to be taken in the food industry.  As a result, someone who doesn’t care about the safety of the product before it ever leaves the plant is like the proverbial albatross, a dead weight on the company.  A good team spots the places that need to be cleaned, the areas that may be hazardous and they watch out for one another.

Their eyes are open, to capture and mitigate any potential problems, whether it’s the materials (ingredients) coming into the plant, the equipment or even the people with whom they work.  The end consumer is treated the same way you want the product to end up on your very own table.

UNRELENTING

A tenacious attitude is almost a prerequisite for working in the food industry.  Eyes must be wide open at all times, so to speak.  Someone who works as well at the end of a shift as they did when the shift started can create and infect the entire line with enthusiasm and passion.  An appetite for excellence and a thoughtful desire to serve the end customer can take the monotonous routine of a food processing line and turn it into a team of energized workers wanting the best products on the shelf at the local grocery store.

PROBLEM SOLVER

And the “HICCU” brings to our last quality — Problem Solving is a huge bonus.  Someone who can actively see a potential problem before it rears its ugly head gives an even greater advantage.  This person sees the food industry not just as a job, but a profession.  They take J.R.R. Tolkien’s philosophy, when he said, “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”

That’s why at Testrods.com we’re helping you ensure that quality food brings the best cheer and songs and we know it’s people, not the safety programs, good manufacturing processes, HACCP requirements, or government regulations that make good, safe food possible.  At the end of the day, with the right people on the right seat on the bus, there shouldn’t be a single HICCUP.

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Some applications involve large tubs, vats, or some other type of product travel where it would be nice to have a test piece that floats. Once again, our thermoform cards provide the simplest solution. We simply insert some type of structure that forces the thermoform card to retain air, which, of course, is what makes it float. We have also manufactured floating rods, which are more difficult because there is less space to close in enough air to make the rod float but is doable.

We took an ordinary plastic “chip clip” as defined by the customer and embedded the contaminant into the clip. The clip can be attached to the product on the line without damaging or opening the product for testing purposes.

Bone is a difficult contaminant to find because it can vary widely based on the size, age, and calcium content (as well as feed used) of the animal. After working with several customers, Regal Packaging Services offers Pork, Beef and Chicken Bone Simulate. We have a small range of sizes at a variety of depths to simulate whatever you might expect to find in the product. Our recommendation (assuming your x-ray has visual display) is always to start with a multi-card. Using a multi-card gives you an easy way to test several sizes and depths to determine what matches the bone you’re using. Once you’ve made a comparison, testing the card against the bone you’re looking for, you can purchase a card with a single contaminant for regular testing.

This small pill shaped test piece is used in a system with a vacuum tube that shoots the test piece through the aperture and returns it to the “home” base. Your system may never be like it, but the point is that we can make a customized solution no matter how unusual or impossible it might seem.

As you may have seen in some of the other thermoform card descriptions, we can put nearly as many seeds as you can imagine on a single card. Pictured here you will find a wide variety of configurations and contaminants. Just let us know your specs: size of the card (up to 8” x 8”) along with size and type contaminant(s) and we’ll get you a quote as quickly as possible. Working with a multi-card is especially helpful when you are looking for multiple types of contaminants or when you want to determine what size of the same contaminant you are able to detect. In that event, once the size is chosen, you can order individual card(s) for regular, standard inspection and detection.

There are a wide range of applications that require a test piece much longer than our standard 5” or 6” Testrods. We can make up to 3/8” x 34” or 1/2” x 34” rigid test pieces which can then be extended well beyond that length with a “handle” made of acetal cylinder larger than the 3/8” or 1/2” extension. In the photos, we used a 1” x 24” cylinder handle with a 3/8” x 24” inch extension.

Test pieces can be made in a variety of sizes and given a pointed end in applications that require the contaminant (metal) to be inserted into a food package such as sugar or some other soft packaged food product. This allows the metal to reach the center of the aperture.

Double-End Test Whips are also available, with metal in both ends. One consideration is to make certain that the whip is long enough to keep the metal on the non-testing side of the whip outside the metal free zone of your detector. If you insert, for instance one end of a whip with 2.0mm and 3.0mm Ferrous, you need to make certain that the 2.0mm metal doesn’t affect the detection of the 3.0mm metal (and vice versa). If the 3.0mm metal is inside the metal free zone, then the detector will be reacting to the 2.0 as well as the 3.0 as if they were combined.

Multi-seed laminate test cards are designed for seeds 4.0mm or less. Multi-cards are useful in x-ray inspection to determine what sizes and types of contaminants your system can achieve. They can be especially useful in temperate environments and applications. If your application is rugged or wet, or your standards are larger, we recommend our thermoform multi-cards.

We can simulate a variety of packaging in an application where you need the test piece to mimic what is traveling down the production line. In this case, we manufactured a clear “package” with the seed inside. With this method, the customer is able to reject the container appropriately, and, in the event the package is not rejected, it is easily seen by the line worker for manual removal.

There are two types of “candy bars” pictured here – one similar to a flat candy bar and the other in a custom, near perfect copy of a candy bar. Since we’re now able to produce many variations using colored material, the copy was made in red (Fe), green (NFe) and blue (SS 316). We have the equipment to accomplish nearly anything you can imagine, and these kinds of designs are proof positive.

Need a test piece that looks and handles like chicken nugget? We can do it. Interestingly enough, in this situation, our first version for the customer left too much “void” in the hole where the metal was placed. Given the sensitivity the customer system was using, the void had the effect of causing false positives. We were able to minimize that hole and supply the test piece with almost no void. It’s an example of how we can work with you before, during and after manufacturing to ensure all the specifications were met.

Our standard acetal card is 2 1/4"x3 3/8,” but if needed, we can cut that size down to as small as 1 1/4” x 1 1/4” (with limited engraving). If a larger card or a card with multiple seeds is needed, see our Custom Shape-Size Blocks and Tablets.

This distinctive test piece was created to mimic an actual hamburger patty. The customer supplied photos of the raw product, which we were able to reproduce and then we placed blue glove contaminant. Using this configuration, the customer was able to determine what size piece the vision scanning system could detect with the raw burger as the background. Had they simply used a blank card with the glove, the system could easily have achieved contaminant rejection, but they needed to be sure the system could “see” the blue against the product itself.

A card with 100 seeds in a 10x10 configuration is used to place beneath whole chickens on a production line. This gives the x-ray system operator the ability not just to see IF the equipment can detect the metal in the card, but also WHERE the equipment can detect it. If there is a problem, the operator (or company) can make any changes necessary to achieve the end goal – safe chicken in this case. This card really highlights another valuable facet of our thermoform cards.

In this scenario, a company processing sugar needed to have a “bag” simulated with the same weight in order to accurately fall through the reject mechanism. A lighter test piece had the risk of passing over the reject mechanism.

Our standard cubes are 1” and 1.5,” but we can also manufacture other sizes if needed. The cubes shown here are 1/2" in dimensions. Cubes can be helpful in applications where a ball or cylinder may bounce or roll away during testing, making their retrieval difficult, or, in some cases, present a hazard to the product or production equipment.

This is a test piece that is dropped into a bottle. It’s designed so that the metal appears in the center of the aperture when testing the metal detector. In addition, the round stop makes the test piece easily removable after testing.

Hexagonal Shaped test pieces can be very useful in places where a cylinder or ball might roll or bounce around a production floor whether dropped by a line worker or ejection from a reject mechanism. Hexagons are similar in weight to the 1inch cylinders without having the smooth, rounded cylinder edge.

Our customer in this plant needed a test piece with a thickness less than 5.0mm. Because we have the capacity to customize sizes and shapes, we were able to mill down a product that met their specifications. That’s always our goal, meeting the specs you need for your product, testing environment and contaminants.