Food Microbial Hazards, Safety, and Quality Control: A Strategic Approach

Physical Hazards

Physical hazards are any poisonous or deleterious foreign objects incorporated into food that have clinical evidence of injury or traumatic injury including perforation of tissues present in the oral cavity and gastrointestinal tract if ingested. This includes hard or sharp foreign objects and choking hazards. Contaminants like dirt, hair, insects, wood splinters, glass, and metal are included in the category of physical hazards (Das et al., 2019). Potential sources of these hazards include:

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  Foreign objects that are present in raw materials

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  Objects that are broken from containers, machinery, and equipment present at the processing plant

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  Objects linked with maintenance operations such as a piece of glass from a bulb

Analytical considerations for the detection of physical hazards in food can be the visual examination of raw material and other objects involved in processing, separation of food components from heavier foreign objects by sedimentation, filtration, and other such processes. The state is responsible for providing a legislative framework that defines certain conditions involved in the processing and provision of food (Alston & Quinn, 2017).