FlexXray has released its 2026 Foreign Material Contamination in Food Benchmark Report, which shows a widening gap between the foreign material food manufacturers are most likely to encounter and the contaminants their detection systems are often designed to catch.
The report, now in its third year, is based on survey responses from more than 170 food safety and manufacturing professionals across North America. It examines how manufacturers identify, manage, and protect against foreign material contamination in their products.
According to FlexXray, plastic has overtaken metal as the most frequently reported contaminant, cited by 37% of respondents. The finding is notable because many in-line detection systems are commonly associated with metal detection, even as the contamination profile appears to be shifting toward materials that can be more difficult to identify depending on product type, line configuration, and inspection technology.
The report also finds that 63% of producers still rely on in-house resources to manage a foreign material event. At the same time, the share of producers planning to increase detection investment has fallen from roughly 70% in 2025 to 57% in 2026, while confidence that in-line equipment catches all foreign material has remained flat.
“For three years now, this report has given food safety and manufacturing leaders real industry data to benchmark their own programs against,” says Kurt Westmoreland, Chief Commercial Officer at FlexXray. “This year’s findings cover how often facilities are dealing with foreign material events, how confident they are in their detection equipment, how they’re investing, and how they respond when an event happens—giving teams a clear picture of where they stand relative to the rest of the industry.”
FlexXray says the full report is available through the company’s website. The company provides foreign material inspection and remediation services for food manufacturers, using X-ray and CT inspection technologies.
