Overall migration from commercial coextruded food packaging multilayer films and plastics containers into official EU food simulants

European Food Research and Technology Abstract v.212, i.5 29mar01

Table of Contents

Antonios E. Goulas

Laboratory of Food Chemistry and Technology, Department of Chemistry, University of Ioannina, GR-45110 Ioannina, Greece E-mail: aegoulas@cc.uoi.gr

Received: 7 August 2000 / Revised version: 27 November 2000 / Published online: 29 March 2001

Abstract. The overall migration from a wide range of commercial five-layer coextruded packaging films into aqueous food simulants (distilled water, 3% aqueous acetic acid) and alternative fatty food simulant (iso-octane) was studied. The overall migration from commercial plastics cups (PS, HIPS, and PP) used for ice-cream or yogurt packaging into distilled water and 3% aqueous acetic acid was also studied. Test conditions for packaging material/food simulant contact and method of overall migration analysis were according to the EU directives and CEN-standards. The results showed that for all tested five-layer films and plastics (PS, HIPS, and PP) cups values of overall migration into aqueous simulants (0.11-0.79 mg/dm², 2.3-15.9 mg/l) and (<0.10-0.41 mg/dm², <0.80-3.1 mg/l) were significantly lower than the upper limit (10 mg/dm²) for overall migration from plastic packaging materials and articles into food and food simulants set by the EU Directive 90/128/EEC and their revisions. The overall migration values from five-layer materials into iso-octane were significantly higher (0.94-8.23 mg/dm², 18.8-164.7 mg/l) than the above values but are still lower than the upper limit for overall migration. Global migration values of five-layer films into aqueous food simulants seems to be independent of material thickness. In contrast, overall migration into iso-octane increases with film thickness.

Keywords. Overall migration · Food simulants · Plastics packaging materials