23 September 2021

M2A Breaking News – September 2021

New BFR german recommendations on rubbers

In July 2021 BfR have published updated versions of “Recommendation XXI – Commodities based on natural and synthetic rubber in contact with food”. Documents are available on the BfR website from the beginning of September

Many changes occurred in the BfR documents for rubbers. The new recommendation provides for a positive list of substances which can be used in the finished product, with specific requirement and restriction. If the material or article is intended to come into repeated contact with foodstuffs, the migration tests is requested to be carried out three times on the same sample, each time using a different portion of the food simulant. Conformity is requested to be checked on the basis of the migration value found in the third test. If there is conclusive evidence that the migration value does not increase in the second and third tests and the migration benchmarks are not exceeded in the first test, no further testing is required. For articles like seals which comes into contact with the food at temperatures up to room temperature and only for a very short time, the new recommendation specifies -more than the previous version- that the migration test can be waived.

 

FDA testing shows no detectable level of Pfas in majority of foods

U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) testing continues to show that the majority of foods do not contain detectable levels of 16 different types of per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)

Testing results released by the agency on August 26, 2021, showed that 164 of 167 foods tested had no detectable levels of any of the 16 PFAS measured. The three food samples that had detectable levels were: fish sticks, canned tuna, and protein powder. The test results were from FDA’s first survey of nationally distributed processed foods collected for the Total Diet Study (TDS). An FDA constituent update on the most recent dataset can be found here. An earlier dataset released by FDA on June 30, 2021, showed that PFAS was detected in only one of 94 food samples.

That set of testing included a variety of breads, cakes, fruits, dairy, vegetables, meats, poultry, fish, and bottled water. PFAS was detected in a single sample of cod, which contained detectable levels of two PFAS compounds, perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA).