When a chemical from packaging migrated into baby milk products in four EU countries in 2005, Tetra Pak and Nestlé were hit with an estimated £1.7m bill to recall food packs over contamination fears.

However, that sum pales into insignificance against the total cost to a brand and the damage to consumer confidence in the way food is packed.

Isopropylthioxanthone (ITX) was in the ink used to print the rolls of material before they were converted into tetra paks. Once the inks were printed and UV-cured onto the carton, the material was rolled up for transport to the assembly point. Thus the printed outside came into contact with what would be the inside of the carton, and traces of ITX were transferred.

At the time, Nestlé spokesperson Francois-Xavier Perroud said: “This is a packaging issue not a food safety issue”, firmly denying that the public should worry about the health effects of drinking ITX-tainted milk.

“A lot of the problem was not that we knew that stuff was toxic, but that we did not know how toxic it was,” says Alistair Irvine, Pira Testing’s principal consultant in the analytical services division. He warns that managing a food safety incident without knowing all the facts can be very difficult.

Testing times

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) responds to any safety issues regarding food production, packing or vending, and issues alerts when incidents occur. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) tests packaging materials and sets guidelines for what is considered to be a tolerable daily intake (TDI) by humans of any chemical that comes into contact with food.

Rusty Odhiri, food contact materials consultant at the FSA, says the food packaging industry has a good safety record. “Scares rarely happen. But when they do happen, it becomes a big scare,” he warns.

He points to the FSA’s Annual Report of Incidents 2006, which shows that packaging plays a small part in food scares. Four incidents were reported in 2006 regarding chemicals leaching from packaging materials into food. Three incidents were the result of chemicals leaching from a can or tin and one incident was the result of chemicals leaching from cardboard packaging. The FSA dealt with 1,338 other reports of food contamination.

This doesn’t stop packaging-related food scares occurring. Remember the reports in 2005 that antimony continuously leached from PET bottles into the water they contained? Professor William Shotyk from the Institute of Environmental Geochemistry, University of Heidelberg, tested Canadian bottled water and said at the time that he would never drink water from a plastic bottle again.

Professor Shotyk’s stance was disputed by many sources. And the reaction of UK consumers showed they trust packaging and that, in convenient formats for popular products, scares wouldn’t deter them from buying a product. Euromonitor International reports that in 2006, more than 2bn PET bottles of water were sold in the UK, up from 1.9bn units in 2005.

There is already a wealth of data available from the EFSA on food-contact materials and a TDI limit has been set for most materials so that firms can test whether their products comply before putting them on sale. “Generally, in terms of plastic, the legislation is nearly complete. Most things have been assessed,” says Irvine. But he says adhesives, inks and additives are the areas food packaging companies should pay attention to in the future.

Tony Lord, an analyst in the chemical investigations division of Pira Testing, focuses on preventing tastes and odours seeping from a pack into a product. He agrees with Irvine that printing inks are a regular cause of food taints.

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