Machine Vision in Food & Beverage: Beyond Label Inspection

Five years ago, a food manufacturer asking about machine vision was almost certainly asking about label inspection or date code reading. Today's conversations are completely different — and the applications are delivering measurable quality and OEE improvements that label inspection never could.

What Changed

Two things happened simultaneously: camera resolution got higher while costs got lower, and deep learning-based vision tools became practical for industrial environments. The combination means you can now deploy a vision system that distinguishes between a properly sealed crisp packet and one with a 0.5mm seal defect — without a specialist vision engineer writing custom algorithms for months.

The Applications Delivering Value Today

Seal Integrity Inspection

Heat-seal defect detection on pouches, bags, and thermoformed packs. Vision systems check seal width, continuity, and the absence of product contamination in the seal zone. A 0.5mm product intrusion that lets air into a MAP-packaged product is caught before it reaches the retailer.

Foreign Object Detection

Colour cameras can detect contrasting foreign objects (stems, leaves, bone fragments) in products on conveyors or in-process. Not a replacement for X-ray where opacity matters, but an effective complementary system for visible contaminants.

Portion Control Verification

Weight and volume variation in portioned products causes both customer complaints and giveaway cost. 3D vision profiling measures portion geometry at line speed — identifying portions that are over/under before they reach the checkweigher or packaging machine.

Cap & Closure Verification

Presence, type, torque indicator colour, and skew detection for screw caps, snap caps, and push-fit closures. Vision checks these at rates that optical sensors cannot match with the same discrimination capability.

Label, Code, and Date Verification

Still valuable — but now combined with barcode grade checking, print quality scoring, and multi-camera coverage for 360° label inspection without line speed reduction.

The Washdown Challenge

Food industry vision deployments fail more often from inadequate IP rating and lighting design than from vision algorithm issues. A camera housing specified at IP65 will fail a high-pressure washdown in weeks. Line-side vision systems in food environments need IP69K-rated housings or must be mounted outside the washdown zone with appropriate window protection.

Lighting is equally critical — and typically undertreated. Illumination that looks fine at 08:00 looks different at 14:00 when the ambient light changes. FERSMEK always designs enclosed, controlled-illumination housings for food line applications. The added mechanical cost is trivial compared to a vision system that generates false rejects three hours into each shift.

What to Expect on a Food Line Vision Project

A realistic expectation for a seal inspection system on a packaging line: detection accuracy above 99.5% for defects larger than 1mm, false reject rate below 0.1%, and zero line speed reduction. These are achievable with the right camera/lens/lighting combination and a controlled housing design.

The FERSMEK process always starts with a sample test before any hardware is specified. Bring us 20 good packs and 20 reject packs. We run them through candidate vision tools and report the detection results before you commit to anything.