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Keller and Heckman Partners Jeff Keithline and Rachida Semail will be speaking at Smithers Pira’s Plastics and Paper in Contact with Foodstuffs 2017 seminar, to be held in Berlin, Germany. Mr. Keithline’s presentation is titled, “Legislation of food contact materials in China,” and Ms. Semail’s presentation is titled, “EU new model or regulating printed food contact materials.”

Keller and Heckman is one of the sponsors for this seminar. More information, including how to register, can be found here.

How are Digester Additives in Food-Contact Paper Regulated in the EU?

Do the EU or German (BfR) authorities consider digester additives, used in pulp digesters, as part of the food contact regulation?   There is no...

Keller and Heckman Associate Mark Thompson will give two presentations as part of the Packaging & Food Contact Materials Forum at the Fibre Value Chain 2017 Conference. He will speak on "Packaging Unwrapped: Chinese regulation of food-contact paper" and "Recycled Paper requirements in the US: Untangling the FDA." 

The proposed California legislation on fluorinated chemicals in fast food packaging, AB-958, has been significantly amended to only ban products contain perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) with eight or more carbon atoms. The bill originally sought to ban food packaging that contained any fluorinated chemical.

Following on the heels of a study by the Silent Spring Institute suggesting that fast food paper and paperboard may contain poly or perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and that PFAS may pose safety or environmental concerns, California Assemblymember Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) has introduced a bill, AB-958, that would “prohibit a food provider from serving, selling, offering for sale, or offeri

A recent publication of a study conducted by the Silent Spring Institute suggests that a substantial portion of the paper and paperboard used for fast food packaging contains PFAS (poly or perfluoroalkyl substances).  The study implicitly suggests that their presence in the packaging poses some safety or environmental concern. It has received extensive media attention.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published a final rule amending the food additive regulations to no longer permit the use of three perfluoroalkyl ethyl containing food-contact substances (FCSs) as oil and water repellants for paper and paperboard for use in contact with aqueous and fatty foods. All three of the FCSs are classified as long-chain perfluorinated compounds (at least 8 carbons in length). The three FCSs are: