How can a fragment of plastic, a piece of glass or metal be detected before it becomes a foreign body in a food product?

The current reality…

The French trade magazine Process Alimentaire has conducted a survey which revealed that; “product recalls due to foreign bodies have represented 5% of recall notices since June 2020 […]”.

(Source: Process Alimentaire – July-August 2021 – n°1393 – p57 – “Foreign bodies – How to detect the invisible”)

From Mafdel’s food industry customers, there is a crucial question; “how can we be certain that the blue TPU will not be found in our food products?”

To which, our response is:

“There is no miracle solution but Mafdel’s monolithic belts are the least likely of all belting products to shed contaminating material. Zero risk however, does not exist!”

Whilst our response is true, there has been undeniable technical progress made in area of metal detectability in plastics. This valuable feature is now available in several new Mafdel belting types. An inert and food-compliant (EU 10/2011 hygiene standards) component can now be blended with the same premium quality TPU material that is used in our standard TPU products to provide an enhanced level of food safety.

The result is a belt that, were it to shed material from mechanical impact, those pieces stand a far higher chance of being detected using a standard metal detector. The risk of plastics contamination is significantly reduced.

3 belts are now in our metal detectable range:

– Blue Del/Flex V-belt,

– ATC-63 blue belt

– Round belt, blue Del/Flex.

Their main and common characteristics are:

– Monolithic, waterproof and rot-proof.

– Resistant to water, detergents, animal and vegetable oils and fats.

– Temperatures resistant from -20°C to +70°C

– Quiet operation

– Metal detectable.

All technical specifications are available on the appropriate product sheet Mafdel-Belts-Metal-Detectable-EN