Eurofins Product Testing - Migration into Food

An increasing amount of food is sold in packaging material. The packaging has to fulfil more and more requirements. Firstly, packaging shall sell, and carry all necessary information about the product, the ingredients and guidance on storage and preparation of food. Packaging shall be stable and fit for its purpose. It shall protect against microbial deterioration, and it shall be safe. For more info, please see www.foodplast.com.

Materials and articles that come into contact with food are object of serious public concern. They must fulfil severe requirements on physical and chemical safety. This regards packaging, but also bottles and its caps, dinnerware, cutlery etc. made of whatever material.

Read an overview of food packaging concerns.

Legal Background

The European regulation (EC) 1935/2004 defines fundamental requirements of food packaging. According to this, packaging material shall neither transfer their ingredients into food in quantities that may impair human health, nor deteriorate aroma or taste. Besides these very general rules some materials are regulated more in detail. Plastics and polymers are regulated in the Regulation (EU) No 10/2011 of 14 January 2011, superseding EU Directive 2002/72/EC. The regulation contains restrictions, migration limit values, and specifications for testing - for safety of food when in contact with plastic materials. While the earlier EU Directive 2002/72/EC had to be adopted by each Member State in EU with the option of national modifications, this new regulation will become law in all EU Member States directly. Specific rules are defined for twist off caps and the inner coatings of tin cans, but some very common food packaging materials like paper and board are regulated only in few countries.

Eurofins Offer

Eurofins Product Testing Service and Consultancy on food packaging helps you with:

• Consultancy and Compliance strategies for food packaging materials
• IFS compliance strategy for food packaging requirements according to IFS 5
• Overall migration testing acc. to EN 1186 on food packaging made from plastic
• Specific migration testing acc. to EN 13130 on food packaging from plastic
• Residual monomer testing on food packaging materials
• Consultancy and Services on food packaging made from materials like
  • Paper and Board packaging materials
  • Metallic food packaging
  • Screw caps
  • Plastic containers, bottles, foils
  • Twist-off caps and glasses
  • Paper and boards
  • Cooking and baking papers, hot filter papers, filter layers
  • Printing inks on packaging
  • Dinnerware, cutlery
    (especially if made of plastic, but also if made of ceramic and metal)

Eurofins Group also offers performance tests for packaging material in accordance with internationally recognised testing standards, or tailored to our customers specific needs. Here are just a few examples of such performance tests:

• Stability under load
• Stability under when falling down
• Thermal stability
• Tensile strength
• Colour fastness (EN 646, EN 648)
• ...

Consulting

Legislation in this area is immense and complicated. Eurofins offers the necessary consulting based on the specific product and application for fulfilling all legal requirements and any additional purchase specification.

Further Information

Information also is available in Danish, and in  German, and in  Italian.

For further information please contact our specialists: