Changes in the food industry including the mass production in response to the globalization of the food chain have led to additional food safety and quality challenges for the food industry. One aspect of these challenges is the effective identification and removal of foreign materials from products. The development and implementation of new manufacturing processes, materials, and techniques can produce many types of foreign materials or contribute to the challenges to their removal. These challenges facing the food industry are requiring more levels of protection along with advances in technologies to help reduce the potential safety and quality concerns of foreign materials. Foreign material identification is important for consumer safety as well as product image and sales. The technologies available for these purposes will be reviewed as well as some traditional methods used as well as some of short comings or problems facing these technologies in the food industry.