Plastic contamination in poultry sausages

Hi All

I work for a further processing plant in the poultry industry and we seem to be experiencing problems with plastic contamination in our sausages. Small pieces of plastics have being found embedded in the product. It is not a normal occurance.

From our investigation it has come out that the source of contamination is the casing that these sausages are filled in. I don't have any history but is this a common problem in the industry.


Thanks

Hi All

I work for a further processing plant in the poultry industry and we seem to be experiencing problems with plastic contamination in our sausages. Small pieces of plastics have being found embedded in the product. It is not a normal occurance.

From our investigation it has come out that the source of contamination is the casing that these sausages are filled in. I don't have any history but is this a common problem in the industry.


Thanks

Most likely source is rework. Root cause is not all casing material is being stripped from current product, and the casing shows up within your product after rework is added back to mixer.

hi

what about trying a different casing supplier and see the foreign matter occurrence

Thank You Azaam

These casings are imported and unfortunately there is only 1 supplier.

Most likely source is rework. Root cause is not all casing material is being stripped from current product, and the casing shows up within your product after rework is added back to mixer.

Thanks Bob. That is something that we have identified as well. The other possibility is the nozzle, if the edges are not smooth, during the filling process it can nick the casings.

Thanks

Hi All

I work for a further processing plant in the poultry industry and we seem to be experiencing problems with plastic contamination in our sausages. Small pieces of plastics have being found embedded in the product. It is not a normal occurance.

From our investigation it has come out that the source of contamination is the casing that these sausages are filled in. I don't have any history but is this a common problem in the industry.


Thanks

Hi RCF,

I have worked in a meat manufacturing company before and we also had physical hazards ending up on our sausages. We use sheep casing and we normally have strands of hair ending up on our products. Root cause was the sheep casing itself. What we did was visit the supplier, which is normally part of our approved supplier program (audits), then we checked how they process / clean the sheep casing and we helped them improved their process considering they are the only sheep casing suppliers in the country.
I think you can also visit the supplier and see how their process works and most importantly, if they are following a FSMS.

Regards, FSB