Comprehensive analysis of migrates from food-packaging materials: a challenge

Area of Science:

• Food Safety
• Analytical Chemistry
• Toxicology

Background:

• European regulation of food-packaging materials lacks comprehensive safety assessments for migrating substances.
• Toxicologists recommend identifying and evaluating migrants exceeding 1.5 µg/day intake.
• Many migrating substances from can coatings are not covered by current positive list systems.

Purpose of the Study:

• To highlight the analytical challenges in comprehensively analyzing migrating substances from food packaging.
• To discuss the limitations of current analytical methods in meeting toxicological safety thresholds.
• To advocate for the development of analytical strategies for a migrate-oriented coating legislation.

Main Methods:

• Discussion of expected analytical problems in identifying and quantifying migrating substances.
• Consideration of toxicological concern thresholds for concentration and molecular weight.
• Exploration of the possibilities and limitations of analytical chemistry in this context.

Main Results:

• Achieving comprehensive analysis of migrants down to currently safe concentrations is analytically challenging.
• Existing regulatory systems based on positive lists are insufficient for novel migrating substances.
• A significant gap exists between current analytical capabilities and the requirements for thorough toxicological evaluation.

Conclusions:

• Current European food packaging regulations are inadequate regarding the toxicological evaluation of migrating substances.
• New analytical approaches are essential to ensure food safety from packaging migrants.
• Systematic research is required to define the capabilities of analytical chemistry for future legislation.