X-ray Inspection for Protein/Energy Bar Products

Fitness and a healthy lifestyle have become booming trends during the last few years. This has also led to new innovations in the food industry as food producers want to offer consumers healthier options and keep their finger on the pulse when it comes to new food trends.

Existing products like yogurts and ice cream are enhanced with protein or healthier ingredients but also new products have entered the market; various selection of energy/protein bars. They have become more popular among consumers because they are convenient and healthy options for a quick snack.

Detect Foreign Object from Protein/Energy Bars with X-ray

Protein or energy bars are often homogeneous (meaning there aren’t a lot of density variations within the product itself) in their consistency, which makes them a perfect product for X-ray inspection.

X-ray technology can be considered to be the most effective inspection method for protein and energy bars since it can detect various foreign bodies without breaking the packaging, be it plastic or metalized film.
The typical detection range for stainless steel contaminants can be as small as 0.6-0.8mm with these types of products. Also, lower density foreign contaminants such as Soda-Lime Glass can be detected in a range of 2.0-2.5mm. All of this in a real-life, high-speed production environment.

It is important to keep in mind that the detection range can vary depending on the production environment and conditions, as well as the product itself. That’s why we always conduct a thorough Application Test, where we test the exact detection rate for each of the standard foreign contaminants and share the results with the food producer.

Quality is an Important Part of the Food Brand

Nowadays, consumers are more aware of the food they buy and consume. They expect food producers to be transparent about the origin of food, ingredients and production methods, also expecting the products to be top-quality when it comes to flavor, shape, and integrity.

The latter can be achieved with a comprehensive quality control system, i.e. an X-ray inspection system that can detect misshaped, too short or broken energy/protein bars from the production line. The system automatically removes such products from the production flow, making sure that only the best quality ones are delivered to retailers and eventually to consumers. This helps to build a strong food brand and has been proved to reduce the number of consumer reclamations even though the amount of the reclamations is higher than ever before.

Having an all-inclusive quality control system is also a marketing argument for the product brand and can be used by the food producer to promote top quality. It supports the food producer’s message of safe food products and promotes transparency that is known to be important also for retailers and consumers.

Benefits of the Compact MEKI ONE

As already established, X-ray inspection is the most effective way to inspect already packaged and sealed products. X-ray technology enables the detection of metallic and non-metallic contaminations but also various quality defects, such as broken protein/energy bars.

Sometimes, food producers have only limited space available in their already existing production lines which might cause problems when implementing better inspection solutions like X-ray. Luckily, nowadays there are X-ray systems that require minimal footprint in the production, still providing the excellent detection capabilities that food producers demand and need.

Our new MEKI ONE X-ray inspection system is a perfect solution for confined production environments where the production lines have been set up a long time ago before this technology was available to be implemented as a Critical Control Point for primary packaging.

The MEKI ONE system is a self-monitoring CCP that ensures that each physical contaminant is detected and removed from the production. Fully automated reject, reject confirmations and additional sensors guarantee efficient production for all packaged food products.

For more technical specifications of the MEKI ONE system, please download the system datasheet below.