Food contact materials (FCM): A critical area with strict regulatory requirements
Food is one of the most highly regulated products. This includes all materials that come into contact with food – the so-called food contact materials (FCM). Products such as packaging, housewares or electrical household appliances that are intended to come into contact with food must be suitable for this purpose.
That is because if substances are released from the materials and migrate into the food, this may be harmful to human health and can entail a high risk for the distributor. Recalls and liabilities as well as the search for the root causes can be costly and result in a loss of reputation. This can affect manufacturers of primary products and intermediate products, manufacturers of food contact materials, and wholesalers and retailers.
They all face a number of challenges: First, the awareness, health consciousness and consumer behavior of the end consumers is changing. At the same time, the international supply chains for food contact materials are becoming ever more complex and therefore often less transparent. In addition, both the number and the complexity of the products themselves are constantly increasing, for example due to the growing use of new or sustainable materials.
Most importantly however, all FCM must meet high and constantly changing regulatory and legal safety requirements.
We support you with a wide range of professional services to ensure that in this challenging regulatory environment, your production is always ready for the market, compliant and safe. With our large network of accredited test laboratories and internationally operating teams of experts, we offer you the entire range of FCM testing and always have sufficient testing capacities available.
Wherever products and materials are used to prepare, package, process, or store food, they must meet strict legal requirements. Companies can verify the quality and safety of their products through appropriate tests and certifications based on international or national standards. Do you know all the regulatory requirements for the markets where your product is sold?
We support you with specialized FCM solutions for the packaging industry , for manufacturers of household appliances and for manufacturers of housewares.
Our FCM portfolio for you
Chemical tests
In silico tests
Sensory testing
Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP)
Declarations of conformity
Certifications
We are happy to carry out various chemical tests on your food contact materials such as packaging, household goods or household appliances.
- PAA, PAH, metals
- Specific migrations, global migration
- Plasticizers
- phthalates
- Nitrosamines
- VOCS
- BPA
- MOSH/MOAH
- PFAS
- NIAS Screening
EU regulations require careful verification that plastic materials intended to meet food comply with the migration limits. We offer you the following services for this purpose:
- Worst Case Calculation (WCC)
- Migration Modeling
We also offer sensory testing to check the quality and safety of your food contact materials.
Benefit from our testing services and expertise to manage the food safety risks of your food contact materials, production lines and production facilities.
We support you from product testing and data collection through to the assessment of the declaration of conformity for your product. With these services, you can be sure that you can provide credible proof of conformity:
- Testing of ingredients
- Checking DoC
- Obtaining relevant supplier information
- Creation of DoC
As an FCM manufacturer, you can be certified by TÜV Rheinland according to various criteria. We offer you:
- Product Surveillance
- Tested for Harmful Substances
- Safe for Food
Creating and documenting safety
Substances can migrate from the packaging material into the food, something that cannot be completely avoided. It is therefore particularly important to test the material for potentially harmful substances. This also includes non-intentionally added substances (NIAS), which either exist as impurities in raw materials or are formed at various stages in the production process and can later migrate into the food. We support you with comprehensive NIAS testing to identify these substances and assess each one of them individually for their risk.
As part of our DoC Management Services, we offer many other solutions to support you with verifying the conformity of food packaging – from the raw material to the final product, from obtaining supplier information to preparing the signature-ready Declaration of Conformity.
Additional services for food contact materials
Food contact materials must be safe – there is no room for compromise. We provide a wide range of services to help you meet this responsibility.
Learn more about our solutions
