Journal of Food Processing & Technology

Migration of photoinitiators from cardboard into dry food: Evaluation of Tenax as a food simulant

2^nd International Conference on Food Safety and Regulatory Measures

June 06-08, 2016 London,UK

Kathy Van Den Houwe

Scientific Institute of Public Health, Belgium

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Food Process Technol

Abstract:

Food packaging is becoming increasingly complex in their design and composition. The direct contact, and in many cases the indirect contact, between the food packaging and the food, yield the transfer of relative low molecular weight compounds such as photoinitiators. Photoinitiators are commonly used in the formulation of UV-cured inks for short drying times. Hence, photo-initiators can also be present in recycled materials, even though the packaging itself has not been printed with UV-cured inks. Evaluation of the migration of chemical contaminants in food by recycling is necessary but very challenging due to the complexity of the matrix and the wide variety of foods that need to be analysed. When a food contact material is not yet in contact with food, the contact material can be checked for compliance using food simulants. In this contribution, a kinetic study was performed to evaluate the performance of Tenax® as a food simulant for the migration of photoinitiators from paper and board towards cereals by comparing the simulation according to Regulation (EU) No 10/2011 against the actual migration into cereals. Conventional migration testing resulted in different migration patterns for different photoinitiators, which were probably caused by the presence or absence of certain functional groups. Real conditions for the migration of photoinitiators towards cereals were seriously overestimated by the conventional migration testing. These overestimations can be reduced by applying a contact temperature of 40°C. Furthermore, changing the pore size of Tenax® had no impact on the migration of photoinitiators.

Biography :

Kathy Van Den Houwe graduated as Bio-Engineer (in Chemistry and Bioprocess Technology) at the Free University of Brussels. In September 2012, after some research on the stability of migrants in food simulants, for the University of Ghent and the ILVO (Institute for agricultural and fisheries research), she started working for the Scientific Institute of Public Health (WIV-ISP) in Brussels. This job is a combination, carrying out tasks for the Federal Agency for the safety of the food chain and doctoral research, again both related to Food Contact Materials.

Email: Kathy.VandenHouwe@wiv-isp.be