Food Contact Regulations

What are food contact regulations? 

How do you know if what you put your food into is safe? Is it leaking dangerous contaminants into your food? Is it safe to wrap your food in that plastic wrap? Food contact regulations, also known as EUR-Lex 10/2011, is a regulation put in place for materials that come into contact with food, such as packaging, utensils and more. Certain materials may not be fit for having contact with food, such as leaking contaminants (toxic substances) into the contents of the packaging, which can be a health risk to humans.  

European standard BS EN 1186, displays the testing conditions and test methods that are used to carry out testing on plastic materials, determining the migration from plastics to foodstuffs.

What is included in food contact regulation EUR-Lex 10/2011? 

Part of the regulations placed, includes a migration limit that is placed on plastic materials used in packaging in contact with food. This refers to the limit on the amount of substances that is able to transmit from the material to the food. 

There is a list of approved substances that can be intentionally used in the manufacturing process. These include monomers, additives (excluding colourants), macromolecules obtained from microbial fermentation and certain polymer production aids (excluding solvents). However, this regulation doesn’t just place restrictions on substances that can be used in the manufacturing process and guidelines, but has an impact on the marketing, such as what must be included on the labels. 

The manufacturer of the product must provide a written document, declaring the materials used, products and the substances. If any changes are to be made to the material, this document must be renewed. 

What testing is carried out to meet specifications? 

Migration testing measures the amounts of substances transferring to the food. This can be an overall migration, meaning testing for all substances that come into contact from the material to the food or specific migration testing, which includes testing for a specific substance transferring.

Impact Solutions are able to carry out testing in our laboratories. For more information, inquire at info@impact-solutions.co.uk or talk to our experts here at 01324 182 489.