Food contact materials are materials that are intended to be in contact with food. These can be things that are quite obvious like a glass, a can for soft drinks, but also machinery in a food factory or a coffee machine.
Food contact materials can be constructed from a variety of materials like plastics, rubber, paper, coatings, metal etc. In many cases a combination is used; for example a carton box for juices can include (from the inside to the outside): plastic layer, aluminium, paper, printing and top coating.
During the contact of the food contact materials with the food, molecules can migrate from the food contact material to the food. Because of this, in many countries regulations are made to ensure food safety.
Famous quotes containing the words food, contact and/or materials:
“Arguably the only goods people need these days are food and nappies.”
—Terence, Sir Conran (b. 1931)
“Whatever my own practice may be, I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“He was no specialist except in the relation of things.... He took most of his materials at second hand.... But no matter who mined the gold, the image and superscription are his.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)