Food Contact Center is the official sponsor of the International Food Contact Compliance Conference. From 26 to 28 September in Baveno (BV) the 10th anniversary of the most prestigious conference in the field of food contact will be held in which renowed experts at an international level will partecipate, promulgating scientific and legislative developments.

Marinella Vitulli, Food Contact Center’s General Manager, will exhibit on 27 September: “Targeted and Untargeted testing for critical substances ( styrene, BPA, phtalates and PFAS)”, the differentiating analytical approach of the laboratory on critical substances will thus be presented, below a bried introduction of the topics covered.

For many substances, the toxicological thresholds have been re-evaluatedand new TDIs, tolerable daily doses, have been defined. The reference values for substances such as Styrene, Bisphenols, Phthalates and PFAS are currently very low. The targhet and worst case analytical approach typical of the food Contact material sector is no longer adequate to demonstrate compliance and risks defining objects that do not actually contaminate food as non-compliant.

Food Contact Center has long invested in the development of methods to evaluate the real migration in the food matrix. Many methods developed by the laboratory have been accredited, and are essential for demonstrating the conformity of packaging, objects- and equipmentd in contact with food.

The FCM legislation, under review, is sharpening the focus on finished items and both intentionally added and non -intentionally added substances (NIAS). Given the need to cover a broad spectrum of substances, Food Contact Center has chosen to invest in technical equipment to be able to cover these needs, also determining and identifying polar and non-volatile substances, thanks to the measurement of the high resolution detectors.

At Food Contact Center, the screening of polar and non-volatile substances is therefore operated with the LC-Q TOF technique, performing fragmentation with positive and negative ionization, it is based on the use of an exclusive database developed over the years the Laboratory Manager starting from 2011, and since 2017 in collaboration with SCIEX, with the University/CNR of Pisa and Florence University. Through these softares the contaminants are able to be recognized thanks to the database procuced by the laboratory which currently has about 12.000 molecules, a part of which are also characterized by MS-MS spectra.This screening approach has been accredited by Accredia, whic has approved the method and libreries produced by the laboratory.

And it is an essential approach for substances as varied as PFAS, which according to the different classifications include over 10.000 molecules. Finally, since the safety of FCMs depends on the interaction of substances with the human body, Food Contact Center has invested in research contracts by activating two doctoral projects starting from 2020 in collaboration with the Institute of Clinical Physiology of CNR in Pisa, for the research of FCM contaminants and their metabolites in biological samples.

To view the program and register for the event, visit the website:

https://www.packagingmeeting.it/shop/food-contact-compliance/