Food consumption and packaging usage factors

In the European Union, the safety of plastics packaging is assessed on a worst-case assumption of the maximum possible dietary intake of a component that may migrate into foods. In contrast, in the USA, intake calculation made in the approval process use various formulae which make some allowance for the different types of foods in the diet and some allowance for the relative proportion of the different types of packaging materials which come into contact with these foods. The factors employed in these calculations are termed "food consumption factors". The aim of this 1-day interactive meeting of invited experts and members of the ILSI Europe Task Force on Food Packaging was to critically examine the applicability of food consumption factors in the EU. This was done by examining whether sufficient background data exist forEurope to propose an approach similar to that used in the USA and, if so, to assess the possible benefits, bearing in mind the different mechanisms of regulation in Europe and the USA.