On October 26, 2018, the European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) Panel on Food Contact Materials, Enzymes and Processing Aids (CEP Panel) published the meeting minutes of its Working Group on Food Contact Materials (WG-FCM). The first meeting of the WG-FCM was held on October 9-10, 2018 in Parma, Italy.

During the meeting, the WG-FCM discussed the draft opinions and noted changes for the following substances intended to be used in plastic FCMs: 1) Montmorillonite organic clay (FPF reported), 2) cellulose pulp, bleached (FPF reported), 3) milled carbonized polyacrylonitrile (PAN)-based carbon fiber, and 4) poly((R)-3-hydroxybutyrate-co-(R)-3-hydroxyhexanoate (CAS 147398-31-0; regarding all foods) (FPF reported).

The revised draft opinion on the first substance will be again discussed and possibly adopted at the next CEP Panel meeting. For substances two and three, the WG-FCM “requires additional information to complete the risk assessment” and therefore “scientific evaluation is currently suspended.” Regarding the fourth substance, the WG-FCM “identified issues for clarification to be further discussed at the next WG meeting.”

Further, the WG-FCM was “informed about the draft statement on genotoxicity assessment of chemical mixtures that is currently under revision by the WG of the EFSA Scientific Committee.” The WG-FCM then “briefly discussed the proposed approaches for assessing chemical mixtures in the context of FCMs.” Lastly, the meeting minutes report that some WG-FCM members attended the European Commission’s (EC) first stakeholder workshop regarding the evaluation of the EU FCM legislation (FPF reported).

The next meeting of the WG-FCM is scheduled to be held on November 14-15, 2018, by phone conference.

Read more

CEP (October 26, 2018). “Minutes of the 1st meeting of the Working Group on Food Contact Materials 2018-2021.(pdf)

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