Ensuring the traceability of food contact materials

Traceability within stakeholders operations Incoming starting materials 

To attain a suitable level of traceability, each business operator must ensure that the incoming starting materials that he uses are supplied with information from the relevant supplier in order to ensure full and unequivocal identification of the starting material to be made. In the case of a converting or producing operation, such information should include  

The name of the supplier and the type or grade of the starting material. The place and date of production, batch number or another equivalent identification number that will unequivocally identify the starting material. In the specific case of starting materials for food contact plastics, documentation of compliance with details of the legislation with which they are complying. 

Documented analysis that, depending on the nature of the starting materials, reports the key attributes against the agreed specifications. 

To fulfil the requirements of Article 17 of Regulation 1935/2004/EC, food contact materials or articles must be unequivocally identified when they are shipped to the next operator in the value chain that is a food company or a retailer. The converters or the producers have to ensure that information capable of operating such identification is transferred to customers. The necessary information consists of (i) name and address of converter or producer (ii) commercial name and grade/number of the material or article (iii) production date and identification of the product. 

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