The programs that many food processors adopt to manage foreign materials often focus solely on the equipment that they install to detect and remove foreign materials, especially metals.
Foreign material management is and must be much more than that, however. It includes vendor approval and quality programs, good manufacturing practices, employee guidelines and education, cleaning and sanitizing, glass and brittle plastics, preventive maintenance and pest management. One of the reasons that processors should develop, document, implement and maintain such programs is to help keep foreign materials out of the foods being manufactured. There are several reasons to keep foreign materials out of foods. These include, but are not limited to, the following: