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Investigation of chemical migration into take away and snack foods

Project Code: A03033

07/03/2011

Food and Environment Research Agency, Sand Hutton, York YO41 1LZ
Bradley, E ;
Central Science Laboratory
Castle, L

Take-away foods are considered to be “foods packaged immediately prior to sale and consumed off the premises shortly thereafter”. The consumption of foodstuffs classified in this way is continuing to increase. From a migration perspective,
take-away foods assume special importance due to the relatively large packaging usage and their conditions of use. Although the contact time is generally short, the majority of the take-away foods are served hot which may accelerate any chemical
migration. In this project 30 take-away food samples were purchased encompassing the range of products and packaging materials available. For each product three samples were purchased as the product would normally be sold, i.e. in contact with its usual food packaging. A further three samples were wrapped immediately in aluminium foil for solid foodstuffs or in glass bottles for liquid foodstuffs, i.e. no contact with food packaging. These samples were used as controls.
Screening analysis of the packaging materials by headspace gas chromatographymass spectrometry (GC-MS), liquid extraction followed by GC-MS and liquid extraction followed by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) identified a number of
potential migrants.

Final report

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