The role of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in a better European regulation of food contact materials – some proposals

ABSTRACT

For most substances migrating from food contact materials (FCMs) to food, the producers have to perform the safety assessment as self-control, since only a minor part has been officially evaluated and listed. This implies that the main official control of the safety assessment is by the national control authorities. The present EU legislation requires this, but in its structure, it still reflects the concept of providing specific and detailed regulation for all FCMs. Over the last about 40 years, only a few types of FCMs were covered by specific regulation and even these only partially; the reaction products and impurities (usually the majority of the migrants) were hardly addressed at all. Taking this into account, the focus of the regulation should shift towards implementing and supporting self-assessment by the producers and harmonised control by the control authorities. This also affects the role of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA): presently its main mandate is to evaluate new monomers and additives for plastics to support their authorisation (roughly 10 substances per year) – a niche job when considering the field in its entirety. Since risk assessment and the specification of the requirements to ensure safety are in the remit of EFSA, EFSA should play a key role also in the control of the FCMs on the market. It should be mandated to provide guidelines on safety assessment with requirements that can realistically be implemented (eased where possible), support control authorities in the evaluation of difficult cases and arbitration in cases of disagreement. If private bodies are engaged to approve materials on request of producers in order to be listed, expected to be the most powerful trigger for implementing compliance work, these would have to be closely guided.

KEYWORDS:

• Guidance on safety assessment
• safety assessment by industry
• support of control authorities
• documentation
• listing of approved substances and materials
• work plans

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.