Use of nanomaterials in food packaging poses regulatory challenges

Engineered nanoscale materials (ENMs), which contain properties that offer potential benefits for use in food packaging, raise new safety evaluation challenges for regulators and the industry, according to a report released in July by the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN) and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA).

The food-packaging industry, food companies and consumers share an interest in ensuring that all possible safety questions are identified and are carefully evaluated and resolved before marketing packaging materials that contain ENMs, according to the report authored by former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) policy official Michael R. Taylor.

The PEN-GMA report, Assuring the safety of nanomaterials in food packaging: The regulatory process and key issues, examines the path of a number of hypothetical nanotechnology food packaging applications through the current regulatory system.

This analysis provides a better understanding of the potential regulatory issues on the horizon for nanotechnology-enabled packaging – an advantage for industry, consumers and regulatory agencies such as FDA and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

“The system is not widely understood and legitimate questions have been raised about how it would apply to nanoscale substances used in food packaging,” says Taylor, who is currently a research professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services.

“Companies developing ENMs for use in packaging would need to work closely with FDA and EPA to ensure questions identified in this report concerning potential risks are answered.”

“Before these packaging innovations could be brought into market, we should ensure that the food-packaging industry, through working closely with government agencies, understands the regulatory framework currently in place along with its many requirements,” says Robert Brackett, GMA’s chief science officer.