Tribunes

Food Security

J.J. Rodríguez Jerez

Grisc – Grup de Recerca en Gobernança del Risc (UAB)

Prioritizing health or marketing

30 October 2009

Packaging, made out of materials of different origins that will be in direct contact with food, has increased significantly in recent years, both in quantity and the variety of materials they are made of.

Therefore, the market dedicated to this support has grown immensely. It includes financial interests and thousand of job positions around the entire world. It also has direct impact on people’s health. This is due to the possibility that part of the packaging materials dissolves into the food, becoming part of its composition as another additive.

Evaluation and safety

This is why all these materials, that will be or could already be in contact with food, should be evaluated, considering their transferring capacity. After this evaluation, materials should be manufactured in accordance with regulations established by the health authorities.

The main goal is clear: regardless of the function you want to achieve using a certain material, it cannot affect the safety of the foods or the health of the consumers. The composition, flavour, and/or aromas cannot be altered, either. Even though the definition is very clear, it is extremely complicated to achieve this goal. Any material can have consequences, especially if it is new and its long-term effects are still unknown.
Given the scenario, various strategies have been designed. They differ in every country and in the criteria defined by the health authorities. In this sense, the strategy defined by the American Food and Drug administration (FDA) is somewhat different to the one described by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in the EU.

The food packaging industry has increased significantlyThe FDA defines a group of evaluated substances considered to be safe and within which mixtures are allowed, respecting the specified set limits for each of them. However, it becomes open to a future evolution with the possibility of marketing other substances. These should be included within certain migration limits, evaluated according to predetermined standardized techniques. Under this regulation, any company only has to present this information and the FDA will decide whether it gets approved or not.
In the case of Europe, in tune with the criteria established for new, functional foods, each company must present the details of its material. Therefore, the same material, manufactured by different companies, will have to get approved separately, not jointly. At the same time, each product or material will need to be on the positive list, which can vary, according to the criteria of the EU committees.

The EU prioritizes the health of the consumers. Meanwhile, in the United States, the priority is to facilitate the marketing of the products. What happens to foods that have been produced in the United States and are to be marketed in Europe, or vice verse, is yet to be determined. This situation could bring problems to international trade or to general health, because of materials that don’t get the approval of one country, but do in others.

Necessary packaging

The development of packaging began when humans started to store foods to be used in the long term and, especially, when food marketing started. But it was after the Second World War, and especially since the 60´s, that the need to package foods got evident in order to avoid contamination, facilitating its identification, and standardize transportation and distribution of the products.

Packaging is made out of materials of different origins. They will normally be in contact with food. Among them, we can name proper packaging and containers, kitchen utensils, crockery and cutlery. They are made out of many different materials: mostly plastics, rubber, paper and metal, as well as new materials such as bioplastics, obtained through different biotechnical processes. It is expected that there will be more in the future, with many added functions.

Other not so evident materials are also included within packaging: the machines used to elaborate common products like ice cream, coffee machines or containers used for food transportation (trays or bottles that contain water or other drinks).

The large quantity of materials that make up packaging, as well as the different priorities of the companies in charge of setting food regulations, have already generated two separated regulation lines for packaging that is inconsistent in the U.S. and in Europe. Imagine what would happen when the number of ‘actors’ increases in the world. It will be necessary to keep updated about the evaluation of all these products, in order to estimate the risks these situations could mean for the health of consumers both here and on the other side of the world.

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