Metal in SPAM, Plastic in Patties: ‘Foreign Object’ Recalls Surge

Metal in Hormel’s SPAM, bone in Conagra’s beef steak, plastic in Koch Foods beef patties.

These are just some of the most recent costly recalls showing how potentially tooth-cracking “extraneous materials” are increasingly finding their way into processed foods.

But the recent spate of costly recalls—which can involve hundreds of thousands of individual items on a national scale—doesn’t signal a faltering food supply system, lawyers and food industry professionals tell Bloomberg Law.

In fact, food makers are using an expanding array of both old and new technologies to detect and remove foreign objects from products, including high-powered magnets, sifters, metal ...