In a letter to the editor published on December 29, 2017 by news provider Environmental Health News (EHN), Mike Belliveau of the U.S. non-profit organization Environmental Health Strategy Center reported on the presence of phthalates in food. There is growing concern about “toxic chemicals that migrate into the food supply from food processing equipment and food packaging,” Belliveau explained. In July 2017, the Coalition for Safer Food Processing & Packaging, which Environmental Health Strategy Center is part of, released a study finding all but one of 30 tested cheese product samples contained phthalates (FPF reported). The coalition launched a campaign calling on the Kraft Heinz Company, the largest U.S. cheese producer, “to investigate and eliminate the sources of phthalates in their products.” Belliveau also mentioned an NGO-petition submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in March 2016, asking the agency to prohibit the use of ortho-phthalates in food contact materials (FCMs) (FPF reported). “FDA must act on this petition or face litigation,” he wrote. Given FDA’s continuing inaction on this and other petitions (FPF reported), “the action on phthalates and other chemicals in food will take place in the marketplace—in response to growing consumer concern—and in state policy making,” Belliveau concluded.
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Mike Belliveau (December 29, 2017). “Letter: (Re)emergence of phthalates in food.” EHN
