Food contact packaging: a safety benefit or detriment?Arancha Bocanegra, professor of the Master in Food Safety Management at Bureau Veritas University Center.
There are few foods or food products that we consume that do not come into contact with some material or object before being consumed. Have we stopped to think about how these materials or objects affect food safety?
We are faced with a duality. If we focus on packaging, it plays a fundamental role in food safety, since its purposes include protecting food from external agents and guaranteeing its quality. Other functions include presenting and helping the consumer to identify the product, informing them of the characteristics of the food, etc.
However, paradoxically, the materials used to make packaging can also affect the safety of edible products, either directly or indirectly: many contain substances that can be transferred to the student data food, leading to its contamination.
New types of packaging
The duality remains despite the great development of new types of food packaging that has been taking place in recent years. The most innovative, those designed to prolong the shelf life, maintain or actively improve the condition of food (known as active materials and objects in contact with food) are not inert, but, in order to act, they intentionally incorporate “active” components intended to release into the food or absorb substances from it or its environment (for example, by adding antioxidant or antimicrobial components). In this way, the product can improve its quality and safety while it remains in the package.
In addition, there are other types of new materials and objects that are being designed to monitor the conditions of packaged food or its environment: these are known as smart materials and objects . These include, for example, devices that change colour when the food has reached the correct temperature.
Existing regulations
How can we avoid or minimise the risk and ensure that food contact packaging is as inert as possible? The answer is that the corresponding regulations must be applied to them.
The general requirements that all materials or articles in contact with food must comply with are set out in Regulation 1935/2004 on materials and articles intended to come into contact with food (as amended by Regulation 596/2009). It applies to finished materials and articles, including active and intelligent materials and articles in contact with food.
This regulation ensures that all materials brought into the EU territory meet the same quality requirements. It applies to all sectors and all stages of production (machinery, installations, work surfaces), storage (containers), packaging (containers), transport, distribution or marketing, except for the production of raw materials.
Its basic principle is that any material or object intended to come into direct or indirect contact with food must be sufficiently inert to prevent the transfer of substances to it in quantities large enough to endanger human health , or to cause an unacceptable modification of the composition of food products or an alteration of their organoleptic characteristics .
These requirements were later supplemented by Regulation 2023/2006 on good manufacturing practices (GMP) for materials and articles intended to come into contact with food, so that they must be manufactured in accordance with GMP so that, under normal or foreseeable conditions of use, they do not transfer their components to food in quantities not permitted.
The more technical or precise aspects of some materials in contact with food have been specifically regulated. This is the case of active and intelligent materials and objects , whose aspects have been regulated by Regulation 450/2009 on active and intelligent materials and objects intended to come into contact with food. This establishes the obligation to evaluate the substances responsible for creating the active or intelligent function of the material or object in order to guarantee that they are safe and meet the requirements of Regulation 1935/2004. Thus, only substances included in the Community list of authorised substances may be used as components of active and intelligent materials and objects or they will be substances that are already authorised by other Community legislation (such as additives, enzymes, flavourings, etc.).
However, there are still materials and objects in contact with food for which no specific regulations have been developed.
The importance of paying attention to packaging
The data tells us about the importance that must be given to materials and objects in contact with food. In the last half of 2016, there were more than sixty RASFF (European Alert Network on Food Safety) notifications related to them, and the latest Report of the Coordinated System for Rapid Exchange of Information (SCIRI, 2015) indicates that, with respect to previous reports, there has been an increase in the number of notifications in this regard.