Inspect Products in Metalized Film Packaging

Metalized film package or pouch is a popular packaging type in the food industry – it is light and relatively cheap packaging material made of aluminum. The properties of aluminum reduce the permeability of light, water, and oxygen, which helps to extend the shelf life of the food products.

Metalized film is used in many different food sectors. Products, such as yogurts, snacks or candy can have metalized lids, packages or pouches. Even in the fish and seafood industry, metalized packaging is very common.

Often these products require a metalized packaging in order to extend the shelf life, but sometimes metalized film is also used for its shiny appearance to make the products stand out from competitors.

On this blog, we talk about the inspection limitations that a food producer might face, but also why X-ray inspection is the most suitable solution for inspecting metalized film packaging.

METALIZED FILM PACKAGING LIMITS THE INSPECTION SOLUTIONS

It is obvious that packaging with metalized film coating cannot be inspected with metal detectors. The detector system is not able to differentiate if the metal it detects is a foreign contaminant or the packaging material, making it impossible to use metal detectors to inspect the products for any possible food safety hazards.

The most suitable inspection solution for most food products is X-ray inspection. Even metalized packaging does not affect the inspection capabilities that X-ray can offer. Since the inspection is based on the density variations, rather than the magnetic properties of metal, the product inspection with X-ray is easy and effective – no matter what the packaging type is.

Also, X-ray makes it possible to change the packaging type to metalized film later on, without disturbing the inspection. This is something that food producer should keep in mind when choosing the right inspection solution.

INSPECT METALIZED FILM PACKAGING WITH X-RAY

It is also known that in many different food sectors, metal contaminants are not the most common foreign objects (e.g. in dairy products, the usual cause for reclamation is other foreign object than metal, which is only about 6.2% of the reclamations). This makes it even more important to consider other options when selecting the most suitable inspection solution for your food products.

A great real-life example comes from Germany; an instant beverage producer packs their powders in metalized film pouches to preserve the products and to offer longer shelf life. They decided to implement an X-ray inspection system to ensure their product safety – Read the Customer Story Here!

Metalized film packaging is very thin, compared to e.g. aluminum cans, which makes it that much easier to detect possible foreign objects, be they metals, glass or even stones. X-ray inspection also provides other valuable inspection features, e.g. detecting a broken candy/snack bar or a missing filling inside a baked product. These features have proven to add more actual value to the food producers since they have been able to reduce the number of reclamations – and helped to build a stronger food brand at the same time!