TYPE Review PUBLISHED 11 July 2024 DOI 10.3389/fchem.2024.1397913
A critical review of test methods and alternative scienti fi c approaches to compliance and safety evaluation of paper and board for food contact
OPEN ACCESS
EDITEDBY Emmanouil Tsochatzis, European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), Italy REVIEWED BY Raquel Sendon, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain Fátima Poças, Escola Superior de Biotecnologia-Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Portugal *CORRESPONDENCE Angela Störmer, angela.stoermer@ivv.fraunhofer.de † These authors have contributed equally to this work
Angela Störmer* † , Lisa Hetzel and Roland Franz †
Fraunhofer Institute Process Engineering and Packaging, Freising, Germany
RECEIVED 08 March 2024 ACCEPTED 21 May 2024 PUBLISHED 11 July 2024
Paper and board are widely used as food contact materials. For such sensitive applications, consumer safety regarding the transfer of chemical components and contaminants to the food needs to be established. Such safety assessments are becoming increasingly challenging not only due to intentionally added substances but also non-intentionally added substances. In the European Union, compliance testing and safety evaluation of paper in food contact are largely based on national legislation and standards. The underlying tests are conventional methods, often overestimating and sometimes underestimating the migration into food. In this article, the relevant standard test methods are contrasted with currently available scienti fi c knowledge. The scienti fi c approaches to develop and identify suitable test methods are critically reviewed. Furthermore, theoretical predictions via mathematical modeling, with the aim to realistically simulate transfer to food, are presented and discussed in comparison with available migration studies with foods. Objectives are to (i) summarize the actual scienti fi c knowledge in the fi eld and draw conclusions regarding the potential and limitations of the existing test methods and (ii) identify research gaps toward a better qualitative and quantitative understanding of transport processes of volatile and non-volatile substances from paper and board into foods.
CITATION Störmer A, Hetzel L and Franz R (2024), A critical review of test methods and alternative scienti fi c approaches to compliance and safety evaluation of paper and board for food contact. Front. Chem. 12:1397913. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2024.1397913 COPYRIGHT © 2024 Störmer, Hetzel and Franz. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
KEYWORDS
food contact materials, paper and board, migration, paper extracts, food safety, dry foods, fatty and wetting foods, migration modeling
1 Introduction
Paper — including cardboard — is increasingly used as food contact material (Technavio, 2023). This is because it seems to almost perfectly serve the objectives of the EU sustainability strategy (Commission European, 2024a; Commission European, 2024b), given that it is based on renewable raw materials and is largely recyclable or compostable. Meanwhile, production of paper is highly energy and water consumptive (CEPI, 2023). The use of recycled fi bers reduces the environmental impact (Deshwal et al., 2019; Wellenreuther et al., 2022). However, with recycled fi bers, unwanted substances are introduced into the material. These may be such varied that it seems impossible to cover them with relatively simple methods and ensure consumer safety, except for applications
Frontiers in Chemistry
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