Food contact materials and sustainability

This article is available for reading in Trade magazin 2024/8-9

Dr. Blanka Daniella Szilvássy 
food safety officer
Nébih

Packaging material in itself helps us to be sustainable by protecting our food from going bad prematurely – this way less food is wasted. In addition to this, the sustainability of the production of FCMs and packaging materials also need to be studied, as achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) is one of the EU’s key objectives. If the European Commission introduces sustainability into its FCM requirements based on the SDGs, it should also ensure coherence with other EU policies, including the circular economy and the Farm to Fork (F2F) strategy.

Pillars

The European Commission decided on the review of the Food Contact standards back in 2020, and since then there have been numerous studies, questionnaires and consultations. The ongoing review process is structured around six “pillars”, the first four of which include – besides the sustainability aspect – a shift of emphasis to the finished product, better prioritisation of materials, and improvements in analytical methods. As for the sustainability pillar, it seeks to increase the sustainability of FCM and food product manufacture and use, including reuse and recycling –“sustainable FCM”.

A Food Contact előírások felülvizsgálatáról már 2020-ban döntött az Európai Bizottság