Food Contact Materials: contaminants and associated risks from the reports published in the RASFF portal (2020-2022)

Abstract

Food Contact Materials (FCM) have been a source of alert and concern for public health. The portal of Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF portal) is a key tool for food safety that includes the countries of the European Union, together with a few associated countries. This system ensures the flow of information to enable swift reaction when risks to public health are detected in the food chain. The present work aimed at characterizing the RASFF notifications related to FCM that occurred between the period of January 2020 and December 2022. For this purpose, a database with 600 notifications existing on the portal was created. The results of this study demonstrated that tableware, followed by cooking utensils and cups/mugs, were the product categories that originated the greatest number of notifications. Primary aromatic amines were the contaminant associated with higher health risks and physical particles were the most reported contaminants. China was the country of origin most associated with notifications and Spain was the country that carried out most notifications.