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:
“Men should not labor foolishly like brutes, but the brain and the body should always, or as much as possible, work and rest together, and then the work will be of such a kind that when the body is hungry the brain will be hungry also, and the same food will suffice for both; otherwise the food which repairs the waste energy of the overwrought body will oppress the sedentary brain, and the degenerate scholar will come to esteem all food vulgar, and all getting a living drudgery.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“ET phone home.”
—Melissa Mathison, U.S. screenwriter, and Steven Spielberg. ET, ET The Extra-Terrestrial, realizing he can contact his home planet (1982)
“Though the hen should sit all day, she could lay only one egg, and, besides, would not have picked up materials for another.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)