Recycled cardboard

Hi Everyone

We have had a very unusual occurrence in our factory. We place a cardboard sleeve around a pot and we have found that the cardboard is setting off our metal detector. The card contains recycled material.

Has anyone else had this problem before.

Thanks for any feedback.

Rosie

Hi Everyone

We have had a very unusual occurrence in our factory. We place a cardboard sleeve around a pot and we have found that the cardboard is setting off our metal detector. The card contains recycled material.

Has anyone else had this problem before.

Thanks for any feedback.

Rosie

No experience personally Rosie. Has anyone else?

Hi Everyone

The cardboard did contain slivers of metal - from the recycling process (gold/silver ink off fancy whisky bottle boxes!!) - so if your metal detector goes off just a possible cause.

Rosie

Dear Rosie,

Hmmm. Contaminated packaging. Does this mean you hv to reject / recall / repack 2 months of production ??

Rgds / Charles.C

No, the cardboard goes round a plastic pot so not in direct contact with food and our metal detector is more sensitive than our customers - so any detectable contaminated segments were caught by us - yee of little faith!

Rosie

No, the cardboard goes round a plastic pot so not in direct contact with food and our metal detector is more sensitive than our customers - so any detectable contaminated segments were caught by us - yee of little faith!

Rosie

Hey Rosie does your customer take the cardboard into their production or do they decant the plastic pots in the stores? If they do you are definitely ok even if their detector is turbo charged. Although if your metal detector goes off because of the cardboard how will you know if there is somehting in the pot?

Regards,
Simon

Hi Simon

You are confusing me. The cardboard is part of the pot - like a sleeve - when we detect it is empty.

Rosie

Hi Simon

You are confusing me. The cardboard is part of the pot - like a sleeve - when we detect it is empty.

Rosie

Ahh I understand now. I know it's not direct food contact, but should it be virgin cardboard rather than recycled?

Regards,
Simon

Customer likes the "green" credentials

Rosie

Is this sleeve like a Banderol around the pot?

Are the pots delivered stacked, with 1 pot inside another?

caz

Caz

Yes they are

Rosie

Caz

Yes they are

Rosie

Caz

Yes they are

Rosie

So to recap, you are placing cardboard banderols around a pot, which is then sitting in another pot, and the cardboard is "potentially" contaminated with metal?

Is Metal detection a CCP?

How did you risk assess that the metal in the cardboard did not contaminate the pot it is sitting in, that will eventually be holding food?

Caz

Hi Caz

Yes we do metal detect.
We inspected the contaminated segments thoroughly along with our supplier and the metal slivers (viewable under a microscope) were present in the body of the segment not on the surface and not posing a risk to food that would be contained. (we had to peel the segment apart revealing the inner surfaces.)
The supplier has now also implemented a metal detection check at their facility.

Rosie.