Food legislation and food safety – September 2024

Food Contact Materials (FCMs) – rules and regulations
EU: The EC has published Regulation (EU) 2024/2462 amending the REACH Regulation. It restricts the use of PFHxA and PFHxA‑related substances. These sub-groups of PFAS are very persistent and mobile in water, and their use in certain products poses an unacceptable risk to human health and the environment. The restriction will ban the sale and use of PFHxA in food packaging like pizza boxes, among other things. The European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & HealthCare (EDQM) has published the second edition of the technical guide “Metals and alloys used in food contact materials and articles”. You can download the technical guide after filling in your details. In a recent article, Smithers FCM expert Dr Alistair Irvine summarises the evolving regulations for Bisphenol A (BPA) in FCMs. You can download the article after filling in your details. The EC has published its 2023 annual report (9.96 MB) on the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF). Of the 4695 notifications transmitted, 193 concerned FCMs.
China: Keller and Heckman reports that the National Health Commission has approved a new resin for FCMs.
Germany: SGS reports that the BfR has amended recommendations (in German) for five different types of FCMs, including paper and board. The unofficial translations in English can be found here.
US: Keller and Heckman reports that the FDA has added four new entries to its Inventory of Effective Food Contact Substances (FCS) Notifications. New Hampshire: Keller and Heckman reports that HB1649 has been signed into law, banning food packaging and containers, along with several other types of products, that contain intentionally added PFAS as of 1 January 2027.

Claims, marking and labelling
In 2019, the EU Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD) was amended to include more specific provisions on Differences in Composition of Seemingly Identical, Branded Food Products (DC-SIP) issues, also known as “dual food quality”. In a study (4.26 MB) published in Food Policy, JRC researchers found that the occurrence of DC-SIP decreased from 31% in 2018/2019 to 24% in 2021. They investigate how food companies shaped their marketing strategies to comply with the regulation.
US: The USDA has published an updated guideline that makes recommendations to strengthen the documentation that supports animal-raising or environment-related claims on meat or poultry products.

Research
A systematic overview by a team of researchers from the Food Packaging Forum (FPF), together with colleagues from four academic institutions, presents evidence on human exposure to 3601 food contact chemicals (FCCs) and highlight FCCs that are of concern because of their known hazard properties. The study (1.39 MB) is published in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology.
WUR will be investigating the safety of recycled PE and PP film for use in food contact applications. They recently started the 4 year project Flex Forward together with 11 industrial partners.
For her thesis (1.25 MB) at Tampere University, Emma Väre examined barriers to the circularity of SUP food packaging in the EU. The focus was on barriers to mechanical plastics recycling and barriers to using plastic recyclates in new high-quality applications, especially in FCMs.
 

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