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Metal Detector keeps sauce contaminant-free

Private-label producer of custom tomato sauces updates its metal detection capabilities with a machine capable of detecting contaminants less than 2 mm in size.

FSS produces a range of private-label tomato sauces packed in jars and totes.
FSS produces a range of private-label tomato sauces packed in jars and totes.

Food Service Specialties (FSS) of Red Wing, MN, processes and packages private-label tomato and dairy-based sauces to an ever-expanding customer base made up of restaurants, retailers, and food manufacturers across the country. The sauces produced at its facility—among them pizza, marinara, spaghetti, and barbeque—are prized by those customers who need to protect their individual recipes and maintain a high degree of sauce consistency from location to location and batch to batch. The sauce program at FSS also allows its clientele to eliminate unnecessary equipment, reduce the storage of raw ingredients, and save on disposal costs.

Naturally, customers rely on FSS for the most stringent production standards to protect their signature recipes, ensuring the finished sauce is free of any contaminants before leaving the facility. An important part of the company’s quality program has always been metal detection of the sauces to check for contamination such as ferrous, nonferrous, and stainless steel metal.

“The metal detector is a critical step in our sauce processing because our customers demand an absolutely contaminant-free product,” says Rod Oberg, Assistant Plant Manager at FSS.

When the company decided to switch to a newer, more updated metal detector, its requirements for a replacement were faster setup and processing, minimal training, and more robust reporting features. It chose the Eriez Xtreme® Liquid Line metal detector, which now inspects 80,000 lb of different FSS sauces for contamination on a daily basis.

‘Xtreme’ detection

FSS started out in 1985 by fulfilling a customer’s request to match and produce a unique pizza sauce. That initial foray into the restaurant industry helped FSS continue to attract new customers. By 1998, the company had outgrown its plant in Columbus, WI, and relocated to a 45,000-sq-ft facility across the border in Red Wing. About a decade later, the company added another 34,000 sq ft to its production floor.

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