Global Legislation for Food Contact Materials

J.S. Baughan, J S Baughan

• Publisher: Woodhead Publishing
• Year: 2015
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• eBook ISBN:
  9781782420231
• Subtopic: Food Science
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Food contact materials such as packaging, storage containers and processing surfaces can pose a substantial hazard to both food manufacturer and consumer due to the migration of chemicals or other substances from the material to the food, which can cause tainting of flavours and other sensory characteristics, or even illness. This book reviews the main materials used for food contact in terms of the global legislation in place to ensure their safe and effective use. Part One provides an overview of food contact legislation issues such as chemical migration and compliance testing. Part Two looks in detail at the legislation for specific food contact materials and their advantages, hazards and use in industry. - Includes global coverage of food contact legislation - Features expert analysis of future trends in global food packaging regulation - Focus on specific materials such as plastic, paper and rubber materials in contact with food

Part One

Food contact legislation: an overview

1

Food migration testing for food contact materials

M. Ossberger [email protected] FABES Forschungs-GmbH, Munich, Bavaria, Germany

Abstract

Packaging materials and migration are closely related issues. As migrants are of different structures and physical state, different separation and detection methods have to be applied, which are presented in the first part of this chapter. For compliance testing certain solvents are used as simulants. Nevertheless, migration experiments into real food are obviously closer to reality and the basis for identification of reasonable simulants. In the second part of this chapter, several published results concerning migration of substances of special interest into simulants and/or food and applied analytics are presented.

Keywords

Migration

HPLC

GC

Methods of detection

Plastics

Additives

Inks

Modelling

1.1 Introduction

The demands on packaging materials are an image of human history. In early times food was consumed where it was found. Where transportation of (liquid) food was necessary, nature provided animal skins or shell-like gourds, coconuts, or large plants. Later, baskets were constructed from stiff grasses or reeds and were used for food storage and its transportation. First improvements included using ceramics in the Middle East and making sacks of networks or fabrics; glass containers manufactured by the Aegypts led not only to better durability but also to better protection of the food against spoilage, insects, and microorganisms. Wooden barrels were created by the Gauls, which were better suited than the use of amphorae out of ceramics to the increasing goods traffic; barrels were an improvement in supporting the weight of packaging material, storage, and the distribution of the packaging material including food. Food durability was decisively improved by the invention of heat sterilisation of food contained in glass containers by the Frenchman Appert in the early nineteenth century. This improvement was highly welcomed not only by Napoleon for military reasons, but also for the expansion of trade and any situation in which eatable food had to be stored for a very long time (Paine and Paine, 1993, p. 1). Until this point, only such preservation techniques as drying, salting, and smoking were known. These stages document the long struggle against microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi. Swift population growths coupled with higher goods traffic followed new solutions in the packaging sector. More freedom and individualisation of the population followed the inventions of the large new varieties of packaging materials and their marketing. New functions of the packaging, including environmental compatibility and consumer convenience, have and will lead to new solutions of packaging materials such as paper and paperboard, aluminium, and collapsible, soft metal tube packaging materials (Berger, 2002; Welt, reviewed 2005). Nevertheless, when new materials are introduced to the market consumer health problems can arise, for example, the use of lead in soldering tin containers led to lead poisoning. The ‘newcomer’ on the market, plastic, which has pushed back glass as a primary material, is a good example how close the pros and cons can be. Glass has the major advantages of ‘no migration’ properties and recyclability. By ‘migration’ we mean the diffusion of substances from food contact material into the food, which can be of risk to human health or vice versa, which is important to the quality of the food. Permeation refers to the process where chemical substances diffuse, such as through a certain layer of a multilayer material or vice versa. It is common to describe the mass transfer process as ‘migration’. In contrast, plastics, which are polymers including additives, can be easily adjusted to an optimum functionality and protection of the food and to fit a huge variety of customer needs. A disadvantage to plastics is that only a fraction of used plastics are recycled and plastic components including residual monomers or solvents, production aids, additives, and by-products are able to migrate from the mono- or multilayer plastic material into the foodstuff. This could lead to higher toxicological risk to the consumer, and hence plastics have to be risk-assessed. For consumer protection, we need to post recommendations, legal directions, and regulations on a national and international basis, including lists of substances that may be used in the manufacture of food contact materials. The use of these substances could be restricted by limits to migration or limits of initial concentration. One possible way to proof conformity of the material is to measure the migration by analytical methods and compare the result with the migration limit. Details on the procedure of migration tests are well defined in the case of plastic material regulation. Although, it is important to mention, it is common to use simulants instead of real foodstuff; for example, the food simulant for milk is 50% ethanol. The reason is the complicated matrix of real foodstuff, which allows no cheap standard in screenings and specific measurements. On the other hand, only small changes of the food matrix can lead to different and less comparable results. In summary, huge efforts have to be made to understand diffusion processes from food contact materials such as plastics and paper and boards and to control and estimate their risk to human health.

In the next chapters, we explain different analysis techniques, which are important in the field of migration measurement. We present several published migration investigations and summarise and the results.

1.2 Possibilities of food migration testing

In principle there are two poss...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• List of contributors
• Woodhead Publishing Series in Food Science, Technology and Nutrition
• Preface
• Part One: Food contact legislation: an overview
• Part Two: Food contact legislation for specific materials
• Index