Posted By David Hood A company I look after has been externally audited recently, and have been requested to put in foreign body controls and a risk assessment. Have searched the forum for all years, and zero results came up. They manufacture sponges, and do have a metal detector which will of course detect any metal items that may have been packed. Can anyone assist me with pointers in the risk assessment (engineering process going on all around) - controls I can think of are: overalls, hairnets, no authorised items in the workplace, windows closed/bug zapper in place etc. Any help will be extremely appreciated. Kind regards David

Posted By Juan Carlos Arias Filtering processes for powder and liquids with adequate mesh size, these could be in line if coming directly from a silo. Magnetic traps, Pre-use safety checks to ensure cleanliness and reporting of any damage to equipment being used which could potentially become a foreign body. metal detectable items to be used such as plasters, pens utensils etc. you can even get metal detectable gloves. segregation of wood and cardboard in production areas, have designated debbaging areas and prevent outer packaging items of raw materials getting into production. Avoid the use of paper clips or staples.Scheduled maintenance of equipment as well as "clean as you go policies". Hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP. Risk assessments required would be based around the same format used in H&S ie. 5 steps. Metal detectors are good but they will detect foreign bodies only once they have gone into the product, think about active controls. ensure metal detectors are functioning correctly. this would normally be done daily and they should be one of your critical control points. Like it has already been said by previous post. BRC guidelines will cover everything relating to food safety.

Posted By David Hood Juan/Martinw Many thanks for your quick responses. This has helped enormously. Kind regards David