Indoor Air Comfort label was presented at Consense congress and exhibition
Indoor Air Comfort label was presented at Consense congress and exhibition, 22nd + 23rd June 2010 at Stuttgart, Germany. Indoor Air Comfort is a product certification program for showing low VOC emissions of products into indoor air, for promoting living comfort indoors by ensuring good indoor air quality. The program combines requirements of most European national labels into one set of specifications, on two quality levels - Indoor Air Comfort, and Indoor Air Comfort GOLD.
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Eurofins Product Testing - Migration into Food

An increasing amount of food is sold in packaging material. The packaging has to fulfil more and more requirements. Firstly, packaging shall sell, and carry all necessary information about the product, the ingredients and guidance on storage and preparation of food. Packaging shall be stable and fit for its purpose. It shall protect against microbial deterioration, and it shall be safe. For more info, please see www.foodplast.com.

Materials and articles that come into contact with food are object of serious public concern. They must fulfil severe requirements on physical and chemical safety. This regards packaging, but also bottles and its caps, dinnerware, cutlery etc. made of whatever material.

For an overview, please click here.

Legal Background

The European regulation (EC) 1935/2004 defines fundamental requirements of food packaging. According to this, packaging material shall neither transfer their ingredients into food in quantities that may impair human health, nor deteriorate aroma or taste. Besides these very general rules some materials are regulated more in detail. Plastics and polymers are regulated in directive 2002/72/EC with many amendments. Specific rules are defined for twist off caps and the inner coatings of tin cans, but some very common food packaging materials like paper and board are regulated only in few countries.

Eurofins Offer

Eurofins offers a large range of services tailored to the needs of manufacturers and retailers. Typical products investigated:

  • Plastic containers, bottles, foils
  • Tin cans with inner coating
  • Twist-off caps and glasses
  • Paper and boards
  • Cooking and baking papers, hot filter papers, filter layers
  • Printing inks on packaging
  • Dinnerware, cutlery
    (especially if made of plastic, but also if made of ceramic and metal)

Chemical Analyses

Eurofins Group offers fast and affordable testing of packaging in conformity with relevant European directives and ISO or EN standards:

  • Overall and specific migration testing (EN 1186, EN 13130 and more)
  • Sensory evaluation on packaging material and unwrapped food
  • Microbiological testing of packaging material and packaging containers  (EN 1104 and more)
  • Colorants, formaldehyde, and many more substances in food packaging (EN 1541, 15136, 15320 and more)
  • Plastic identification by FTIR-Spectroscopy of the tested product

If successful, a certificate is issued confirming full compliance of the tested product with the relevant rules.

Performance Tests

Eurofins Group also offers performance tests for packagung material in accordance with internationally recognised testing standards, or tailored to our customers specific needs. Here are just a few examples of such performance tests:

  • Stability under load
  • Stability under when falling down
  • Thermal stability
  • Tensile strength
  • Colour fastness (EN 646, EN 648)
  • ...

Consulting

Legislation in this area is immense and complicated. Eurofins offers the necessary consulting based on the specific product and application for fulfilling all legal requirements and any additional purchase specification.

Further Information

Information also is available in DenmarkDanish, and in Germany German, and in Italy Italian.

For further information please contact our national organisations or our specialists.