Food Safety Matters FlexXray: Emerging Technologies for Improving Foreign Material Detection
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Mar 17, 2026 Kye Luker, Chief Product Officer at FlexXray with 20+ years in CPG and food safety, discusses cutting-edge foreign material detection. He covers why some contaminants evade traditional systems. He explains computed tomography and photon-counting X-ray benefits. He describes multi-pronged strategies combining upstream prevention with advanced downstream inspection.
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End Of Line Detectors Are Reactive Not Preventive
- Foreign material remains hard to prevent because end-of-line detectors are signaling devices, not upstream mitigators.
- Kye Luker cites persistent contaminants like wood, bag liners, and glove tips that escape detection when only using inline X-ray or metal detectors.
Use Third Parties To Narrow Hold Windows
- Use a third-party inspection partner to tighten detection windows and support data-driven hold/release decisions.
- FlexXray inspects held/bracketed product with higher sensitivity to pinpoint start and end of an event for faster release decisions.
Reinspection With Same Settings Often Fails
- Re-inspecting in-house often repeats the same miss because it uses the same equipment, speed, and sensitivity settings.
- Kye explains inline systems can't easily change speed or sensitivity on the fly to find smaller or differently oriented contaminants.