Assessing the safety of metal FCMs

Many of the food contact surfaces in metal foodstuff packaging such as coatings, sealants and gasket materials are bought in formulated specifically for the particular application. Detailed compositional information is rarely available for reasons of confidentiality, so the packaging manufacturer must ensure that the material supplier is aware of the intended application and 

3 Compliance with existing legislation, recommendations and guidance 

4 Problems in applying test methods developed for non-metal 

5 Management of migration of non-intentionaiiy added starting substances 

Effective assessments will be possible only through close co-operation along the materials supply chain. This approach is, however, of only limited use unless it is taken in parallel with a more realistic assessment of the real potential for exposure of consumers to these substances. The traditional approach is to use a series of worst-case assumptions which, whilst workable for most intentionally added substances, becomes um-ealistically onerous for these traces of non-intentionally added substances. The need for realistic exposure assessment and a description of some of the tools now emerging to facilitate this is covered elsewhere in this book. 

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