E_Pieke


On February 8, 2018, at 02:00 pm CET (Central European Time), the Food Packaging Forum (FPF) held a public webinar on prioritization of unknown substances in food contact articles.

Different food contact materials (FCMs) such as plastics, metals, or paper and board bring about a cocktail of unknown chemicals in food likely never intended for consumption. The health risk associated with these chemicals is poorly understood while regulation is lacking. Therefore, methods are needed to prioritize unknown compounds based on their concentration for risk assessment.

Guest speaker Eelco Nicolaas Pieke is a PhD candidate at the National Food Institute of the Technical University of Denmark (DTU Food), where he performed research on quantifying, identifying, and prioritizing chemical contaminants in paper and board FCMs (FPF reported). He presented his research group’s findings on developing comprehensive analytical strategies that permit exploring unknown chemicals, demonstrated as example in paper and board FCMs. As their exploration provided a wealth of data, but included uncertainties, the application in risk assessment was also investigated.

The talk was followed by an interactive Q&A session.