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X-ray inspection punches up pork products QA

Kelley Foods confidently combats metal, bone, stone, glass, or plastic contaminants in a full range of shipping case sizes.

Kelley Foods ships a broad range of pork products in more than 25 different case dimensions and weights.
Kelley Foods ships a broad range of pork products in more than 25 different case dimensions and weights.

Kelley Foods of Alabama, Inc., Elba, AL, produces natural-casing smoked and fresh pork sausages in several varieties, as well as hams, bacons, and hot dogs, both for retail and foodservice markets, primarily in the Southeastern U.S. Retail products are sold under the premium “Kelley” brand and value-added “Tasty” brand.


Over the years, Kelley Foods has implemented a range of quality assurance inspection procedures both for incoming and outgoing products. But, due to the lack of floor-space in the more than 50-year-old plant, which houses five production lines, adding inspection equipment on-line was problematic.


Processing takes place in one room, and then the products are transported to two separate rooms for bulk packaging or vacuum packaging. Most of Kelley’s retail products are vacuum packaged in thermoformed packaging, giving them a 90-day refrigerated shelf life. Institutional and foodservice products also are vacuum packaged, but typically are sold frozen and shipped in cases with plastic liners to prolong transport and shelf life.


Kelley Foods had been using an on-wheels metal detector to execute its end-of-the-line product inspections. The metal detector had to be rolled from one retail and bulk packing station to another to check for contaminants. The approach was labor-intensive, time-consuming, and cumbersome.


Inspection SOS


Late in 2010, Kelley Foods management tasked Sheri Kutch, quality assurance manager, and Kenneth Hattaway, production manager, to review manufacturing practices and make a recommendation for a product contamination inspection solution that would help the company enhance food safety. Kutch recalls, “Not only did we have floor-space challenges and multiple packaging approaches, but we also had approximately 300 SKUs at the time and more than 25 different shipping case sizes. It was no surprise to us that only two companies responded to our request for assistance.”

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