Food legislation and food safety – March 2025
Food Contact Materials (FCMs) – rules and regulations
EU: SGS reports that EU Regulation 2025/351 was published on 24 February 2025 revising three pieces of legislation on FCMs:
- Regulation 2023/2006 on GMP (consolidated version April 2008);
- Regulation 10/2011 on plastic FCMs (consolidated version January 2025);
- Regulation 2022/1616 on recycled plastic FCMs (consolidated version March 2025).
This is the 18th amendment to Regulation 10/2011 on plastic FCMs and in the article SGS gives an overview of the changes. Brazil: SGS reports that the Health Regulatory Agency has added two chemicals to the positive list of substances for plastic FCMs. The amendment is effective as of 10 February 2025. US: Keller and Heckman reports that the FDA has added six new entries to its Inventory of Effective Food Contact Substances (FCS) Notifications.
Food Contact Materials (FCMs) – research on migration
Adding silver nanoparticles to plastic food packaging looks quite promising due to their antimicrobial properties. However, USDA researchers found that the silver migrated to all four food products that they tested. The study (6.3 MB) is published in ACS Food Science and Technology.
Printing inks and adhesives are commonly used on food packaging and their chemicals can migrate into foodstuffs. FPF reports on a study analysing 52 food samples for the presence of 110 of these chemicals. The researchers found that 39 samples contained at least one of the chemicals. The study (abstract) led by Ciboris is published in Food Chemistry.
Claims, marking and labelling – rules and regulations
Lithuania: Draft legislation amending the technical regulation for honey has been sent to the EC. The objective of the legislation is to implement Directive (EU) 2024/1438 on revising the 'breakfast directives'. These directives lay down rules on the composition, sales name, labelling and presentation of honey, fruit juices, fruit jams and dehydrated milk. NL: Foodwatch (in Dutch) has once again filed complaints with the Advertising Code Committee (RCC) about the packaging of ‘free-range’ and organic eggs during the bird flu housing measures. The messages on the egg cartons suggest an outdoor life for the hens. Several companies have chosen to include a disclaimer on the packaging next to the best-before date. However, Foodwatch believes that this is still misleading the consumer. US: The FDA has postponed the effective date for the final rule updating the definition of the voluntary “healthy” claim until 28 April 2025.
Claims, marking and labelling – consumer research
US consumers report discarding food near or past the label date even more often than they did in 2016, according to new findings from a survey (1.21 MB) by researchers from CHLPI, ReFED, and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. 43% of US consumers say they always or usually discard food near or past the label date. This was 37% in 2016.
The marketing of branded food products as being identical (i.e. in their brand and packaging) across EU Member States when, in fact, they differ significantly in composition or characteristics (i.e. in their ingredients), is often referred to as ‘dual quality’ (DQ). A study (1.77 MB) in Food Policy published by JRC investigates how DQ affects consumers’ purchase decisions.
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