Testing Migration from Food Packaging Materials

Abstract

The first purpose of food packaging is to protect the food against deterioration and to maintain it at the highest possible quality level until eaten by the consumer. In this way, food packaging contributes essentially to saving food. In order to pack the huge diversity of foodstuffs that can be found on the market today and to meet all their specific sensitivities, a variety of food packaging materials and combinations of them are used. Structurally, this ranges from rigid containments made from mono-materials such as glass, polymers, metals, and cardboard to multimaterial, multilayer flexible film constructions and from the conventional passive protection packaging to complex active packaging systems with integrated oxygen absorbers. Caps, closures, lids, and other sealing or closing devices put a further complication on top of the basic package. Set-off mass transport from printing ink on the outside layer of packaging material into food emerged as a new risk in 2005 due to the so-called "ITX crisis" that involved 2-iso-propyl thioxanthone (ITX), a photoinitiator used in ultraviolet (UV) printing inks (EFSA 2005). This resulted in an increased awareness that food contact materials (FCMs) can contain additives in nanoform that are further contributors to the complex world of food packaging, particularly when it comes to lawful compliance testing of FCMs and articles, and ensuring their safe use.