There seems to be a slight movement in Europe against the use of any type of shoe covers under the BRC 7 standard. Subtle, but worrying, particularly for factories with High Care areas. I can understand the reasoning. I, like you, have had experience of several companies providing shoe covers that disintegrate on contact with floors! However, the increased costs of having PPE for auditors, contractors and visitors is a significant pain! Consider the real risk of using shoe covers - if you find shoe covers are disintegrating to such an extent that you are relying on metal detection to reduce the risk, then perhaps you should be searching for a more robust shoe cover? Contrast these two conversations with an auditor;
You: "Well, to be completely honest, we see that the fact that our shoe covers tend to shred when walking on walkways over production lines allied with the fact that we regularly sweep up the floor, complete with rat droppings and pieces of shoe covers, and lash them straight back onto our production lines, that we though it would be prudent to use metal detectable shoe covers in our production area. It's all in my HACCP programme!"
Auditor: "Erm, OK. How many j's are there in major again?"
Or;
You: "What exactly would be the advantage of using metal detectable shoe covers? We use an Ethylene Vinyl Acetate rubber sole boot cover that not only complies to the highest standards available in both the pharma and medical device industries, but also complies to our strict health and safety procedures on our sometimes wet floor surfaces. What were you thinking raising such a nonsensical issue? Are you some kind of idiot?"
Auditor: "Yes, yes I am. I am an idiot. And I apologise for taking up your time. You are smarter than me, despite you earning about 60% of my annual salary, and carrying out a much more difficult job. Also, you are much more pretty than me."
I appreciate that you will have to have some backbone, be as pretty as me and work for a poor wage to make scenario 2 to work, but I honestly think that it is the scenario you should follow.