Although food safety plays animportant role in ensuring sound health, itis still a widely-discussed issue due to indifference of the authorities concerned. Even there are a lot of things to do to ensure food security and food grade ink is one of them.
From food making to the plate, food grade ink is available everywhere nowadays. For labeling or printing, use of ink is widely known. But such ink can also be contaminated, and raw materials for packaging goods can also carry such risk.
JatinTakkar, Head of Product Safety and Regulatory of Siegwerk India, one of the leading suppliers of printing inks and coatings for packaging applications and labels in Southeast Asia, has shared his views about such unknown facts with Bangladesh Post recently.
Bangladesh Post: Why do you feel that we should think of ink safety regarding packaged food in Bangladesh?
JatinTakkar: Food safety refers to the conditions and practices that preserve the quality of food to prevent contamination and food-borne illnesses. From farm to fork, the principles of food safety need to be adhered to in order to ensure consumer safety. Food industries have been proactive on the risk assessment of the raw materials, however only minor attention has been drawn to packaging materials. The food safety risk is comparatively higher for the packaging materials since packaging material suppliers and their vendors are not under the control of food authorities, unlike the raw material suppliers and hence have not been linked to the supply chain from the food safety perspective. In Bangladesh, it is important to protect and promote public health through enforcement of food packaging regulations.
Bangladesh Post: Can you define broadly about why toluene is the most-talked-about solvent and health implications related to it?
JatinTakkar: Toluene (methylbenzene) is an aromatic hydrocarbon (C6H5CH3), which is a colorless, flammable liquid. It is widely used as an industrial solvent. Toluene is used in making paints, paint thinners, fingernail polish, lacquers, adhesives, and rubber and in some printing and leather tanning processes. Additionally, it is used as solvent in printing inks, including for those in food packaging. Its concentration on food packaging inks can be as high as 40 percent.Almost all the printed structures which are printed with solvent-based inks contain a certain amount of solvent (such as toluene) called retained solvent despite the drying controls established during the conversion process. Most of the flexible packaging substrates as well as the rigid materials like PET bottles do not possess adequate barrier to prevent food contamination with toluene.
Toluene has earned disrepute globally for its bad toxicological profile. The manifold adverse effects make it an issue related to consumer safety, occupational safety and environmental safety. Due to its developmental toxicity, toluene is classified as CMR category 2 (suspected of damaging the unborn child). Furthermore, residual toluene in packaging also impacts the organoleptic properties of the product thus leading to food quality and safety issues. Odour threshold varies from 0.5 –100 mg/m3(130 ppb –26 ppm) depending on the source. This level in comparison to other solvents is very low.
There have been various research studies that found that toluene actually can affect human health in multiple alarming ways. Toluene can easily cross the blood-brain barrier and lead to many health concerns like headaches, dizziness, hallucinations, memory loss, and confusion. Among many other adverse health effects which can be caused by toluene exposure, one of the most critical effects is ototoxicity. This is especially relevant for workers in production as the ototoxic effect is intensified by industrial noise and can end up via hardness of hearing in anacousia
Bangladesh Post: Do you think packaging materials itself a source of toxicity in general?
JatinTakkar:Primary function for any packaging material is to protect the food / other product packed inside themhowever, a lesser known fact is that the same packaging material could also be a source of chemical contaminants and hence may impact food safety as well as food quality. The packaging materials can themselves be a source for hazardous impurities. Examples are phthalates with metal, BPA with plastics, o-phenyl phenol with aluminum cans, and mineral oils with recycled board among others.
But among the different components of packaging material, packaging inks need specific attention as they might hamper product and consumer safety. Each packaging ink is a mixture of different chemicals and some of these chemicals might be harmful while holding the potential to migrate to the foodstuff when getting in contact. In terms of hazards, the chemicals could be toxic, carcinogenic, mutagenic, repro-toxic and can even have endocrine disrupting properties.Hence, a responsible ink manufacturer is required to make the right selection of chemicals in right amounts to minimize migration risks and to produce a safe product for the consumers. Migration optimized inks are safe inks with the best standards which acknowledge the value of consumer safety.
Bangladesh Post: What is the concept of safe, compliant and migration optimized inks?
JatinTakkar: Compliance in packaging safety needs to be based on these three pillars which are legal requirements, brand owner requirements and self-commitments.
Each supply chain partner (including the ink manufacturer, adhesive manufacturer and substrate manufacturer) needs to be aware of the legal requirements (relevant for a particular region) for their component of the packaging structure and must build systematic processes to ensure delivery of consistent and safe products.
Brand owners, with their global footprints, sometimes have their own specific requirements for packaging safety beyond the legal requirements of the countries (especially developing countries like Bangladesh). Each supply chain partner needs to make themselves aware of such requirements and upgrade their products to comply with such norms, in order to offer same level of consumer safety across all regions.
Each supply chain partner is responsible for their own products and formulations. Hence, it becomes the ethical responsibility of supply chain partner to deliver safe products (with only safe chemicals in their formulations) and also update the authorities and brand owners on such initiatives to benefit the society at large.
Bangladesh Post: Do you think all brands should think about safety?
JatinTakkar: Fast forward to post global pandemic; consumers have an increased focus and on hygiene and food safety. Thus, the packaging supply chain has to gear up and align itself to the new customer expectations. For example, in Bangladesh BFSA promotes the use of safe packaging through their regulations and we are now witnessing that some printers are therefore proactively choosing the safe inks. Brand owners have to collaborate more with their packaging supply chain to assess and mitigate the risks from the packaging material. Brand owners have to be vigilant on what packaging they are using and how they are ensuring consumer safety with that packaging.
Bangladesh Post: Why do you thinkpopular brandsare switching to toluene-free inks?
JatinTakkar: Popular brand owners are normally very vigilant, ensuring the safety of their products and hence give due diligence to topics that may impact the safety of their products. Brand owners keep upgrading themselves to assure the safety of their products to make sure that consumer trust on their product remains intact. They understand clearly that a single product safety recall would not only produce heavy costs of non-compliance but would also damage their brand reputation and affect the future sales of their product even in other regions of the world.
Bangladesh Post: In your opinion, what is required for Bangladesh market to have safe packaging?
JatinTakkar: Everywhere across the globe, it starts with awareness about the packaging safety. It is a high time that brand owners, regulators and other stakeholders in the packaging supply chain should come together and create more awareness about the subject as this would be the first step for driving the change. Then, possibly brand owners needs to integrate the packaging supply chain to create the specifications for ensuring the safe packaging for their food products, which eventually will be consumed by consumers in Bangladesh. And above all, it is the responsibility of the regulatory bodies to create precise regulations around the subject and then also ensure adherence to these regulations.