It‘s exciting when a company sees an opportunity for growth. The lure of new markets, better ways to provide new and improved products, and the chance to spread its mission and benefit more customers, add up to a compelling corporate vision. In the food industry, that opportunity also comes with new challenges - both market-based and regulatory.

A closer look: Customers Nutradried Creations

Nutradried Creations is a Blaine, Washington-based leader that uses state-of-the-art technology to create shelf stable, healthy snacks derived from natural, whole foods. As a company, it boasts a track record that demonstrates it is about more than turning a profit.



Nutradried Creations has a compelling, simple mission statement: Nutradried Creations’ purpose and mission is to create a Triple Bottom Line – impacting people’s lives and bringing profit to shareholders – through social business by selling environmentally and socially responsible products that will ensure that the customer receives the best nutritional products possible, through the innovative use of our patented process and strategic relationships.

For example, it partners with organizations like Agros International, a Seattle-based nonprofit that assists poor, rural farmers in purchasing their own land through low-interest or interest-free loans. This helps these farmers break out of their generational poverty cycle. By only purchasing ethical ingredients that are fairly traded, Nutradried also partners with its customer to provide a fair wage for a beautiful product. This helps to enable farmers to provide food, clothing, shelter, and an education for their children.

The achievements are impressive. With Agros, Nutradried Creations helped develop 42 villages, aiding 24,000 farmers and fostering generational change.

It is now doing similar work in Ethiopia by supporting dairies that feed orphanages and provide economic opportunity for their local communities. To help achieve these and other goals, the company needs vendors it can trust to help it on the operation and processing side.

The HACCP challenge

In addition to new customer expectations, Nutradried CreationsIt is now doing similar work in Ethiopia by supporting dairies that feed orphanages and provide economic opportunity for their local communities. To help achieve these and other goals, the company needs vendors it can trust to help it on the operation and processing side. must also comply with a higher compliance bar raised by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the past several years. Perhaps the most significant are the much tougher Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) requirements. When an inspector comes calling at your food processing facility, they expect to find strong evidence that you have completed a hazard analysis, and have a plan that includes, identified critical control points (CCPs), and the limits for each CCP; as well as introduced CCP monitoring processes, procedures and corrective actions, ensuring your HACCP system functions as intended.

Of these, FDA warning letters have tended to most often focus on corrective actions. The final rule requires a plant‘s HACCP plan to identify the corrective actions to be taken if a critical limit is not met. Corrective actions are intended to ensure that no product leaves the facility that has been adulterated or is dangerous to human health.

Sesotec Inc.’s solution is HACCP, BRC, and IFS compliant with no foreign contaminants“ says Nutradried Creations Plant Manager Phil Fraley. That‘s especially important for a company with a higher calling to help the economically disadvantaged.

Working with Sesotec Inc. also gives Nutradried Creations more confidence when preparing for a customer audit. “We want to be ready,“ Phil said. “We want our customers to have confidence in doing business with us.“



The search

Phil‘s team evaluated nine different X-ray suppliers. “We spent about twelve hours going through the capabilities for each,“ he adds. Ultimately, many things set Sesotec Inc. apart from the pack, but Phil cites one example: A commitment to quality training.

“Sesotec Inc. included quality training in their fees and provided us with a great machine,“ Phil said. Competitors wanted to charge up to $5,000 to provide training, he added. He spent about four hours putting together spreadsheets and presented the Nutradried Creations‘ owners with the recommendation to go with Sesotec Inc. RAYCON Technology.

A closer look The RAYCON product inspection system for packaged products

In addition, packaging components such as aluminum clips on sausage chubs or aluminium pie plates can be masked out as needed. RAYCON’s unique edge filter technology will analyse dense packaging edges in metal cans or carton walls, compensate for them; but still find foreign material at these edges. So 100% package inspection is always taking place with the RAYCON. Users like Nutradried Creations can operate with confidence with this kind of support.



RAYCON‘s innovative software also delivers a number of advantages. The use of real-time, solid-state flash memory, means no longer having to account for error- prone spinning hard drives. A Linux operating system - known the world over as a very robust industrial platform - allows for the full processing horsepower of a dedicated image analysis computer to find the smallest foreign material in food products. Finally, the electronic design is modular and rugged; no UPS is required for system protection, and access is easy, for lower cost of ownership.

The future

Because of its partnership with Sesotec Inc., Phil says the company will now be able to pursue larger partners, including private labels. “This represents a potentially big growth opportunity for Nutradried Creations,“ Phil stressed. “We benefit from working with partners who share our commitment to doing things well and doing them right.“
Phil and the team at Nutradried Creations remain committed to providing high-quality products that benefit people all over the globe. Working with a partner like Sesotec Inc., they are confi dent they‘ll achieve their worthy goals.

Nutradried Creations is a company full of dedicated, visionary professionals who firmly believe that getting also means giving. It‘s understandably proud of all that it has achieved by providing quality food inextricably linked with fair treatment of farmers and others in the production and delivery chain, but now it‘s hungry for more. At Nutradried Creations, the future is now.

X-ray technology to find stones

EUROVERDE uses X-ray technology to find the smallest stones in soups

EUROVERDE Societa Agricola in Azzano Mella in the province of Brescia in Lombardy stands for tradition and craftsmanship in vegetable growing. For more than 60 years of experience, the family business today refines a wide variety of vegetables and lettuces into top-quality products in three farms with more than 100 employees and a cultivated area of 200 hectares. In line with the best agricultural cultivation practices, EUROVERDE continuously invests in technological innovations. In this way, the highest quality and safety standards are maintained, sustainability and traceability are achieved - basic prerequisites for the continuous growth of the company.

Specializing in the production of ready meals, soup and salads, EUROVERDE subjects all fresh products to the least possible processing after harvesting in order to maintain hygienic safety, taste and nutritional values.

The company has multiple certifications, including BRC and IFS Food. In 2017, EUROVERDE also obtained organic certification as a manufacturer of ready meals.

The problem: Natural ingredients such as stones, can affect the quality of the final products
EUROVERDE‘s entire product range is the result of a quality process at the highest level. In the field of foreign matter management, EUROVERDE has been using various metal detectors for years to separate metal particles of any kind from the products.

However, when processing fresh food from the field, the risk that natural components, such as stones, remain in the product could be high, compromising the safety and quality of the product.

The solution: Using X-ray technology to find all foreign bodies, not just metals.
In the food industry, quality has top priority and EUROVERDE also takes the safety of its products very seriously. In order to detect not only metal particles, but also the smallest stones, the company was looking for a reliable solution and found it in X-ray technology. X-ray inspection systems detect all foreign bodies in food that differ in density from the product being inspected.

Customer benefits: Improving product quality through X-ray inspection
Since the installation of the X Ray machines, many stones have been found, they are able to detect smaller pieces, even with half of the size as before. „EUROVERDE adheres to the family tradition of producing only safe products of the highest quality. Therefore, we strive to optimize the production processes with the best technologies. With Sesotec‘s X-ray technology, we have found the support we need to tackle the stone problem and meet our quality requirements,“ says Benedetta Manzini, EUROVERDE Quality Assurance.