How Metal Detection Is Helping Frozen Food Producers Cut Waste and Boost Productivity

Frozen food production is a high-volume, high-speed business.

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Pizzas, ready meals, chips and vegetables all travel quickly from processing to packing, destined for cold storage and supermarket freezers. But along this fast-paced journey, one small variable can have a big impact: temperature. As frozen products move through production lines and can begin to thaw, even slightly, their behaviour in metal detection fields can change. This often results in false rejects or a loss of sensitivity. The consequences are not just technical. They are commercial. Wasted product, rework and unnecessary downtime all hurt the bottom line.

False rejects remain one of the most persistent and expensive problems in frozen food inspection. While the products themselves may be perfectly safe, small temperature shifts alter the product's signal when passing through the metal detector, which can trigger unnecessary rejections. This does not reflect a fault in the metal detector but a mismatch between changing conditions and the normal inspection parameters.

Advanced metal detection systems with adaptive signal processing are changing this. Systems like the Profile Advantage from Mettler-Toledo use Multi-Simultaneous Frequency technology with multiple inspection modes and an intelligent inspection algorithm (3S), which eliminates the active product signal in real time. This enables the metal detector to maintain accurate detection sensitivity without increasing false reject rates. The result is increased brand protection, less waste, more reliability and improved productivity.