Food legislation and food safety – September 2025

Food Contact Materials (FCMs) – rules and regulations
Bangladesh: FPF reports that the BFSA has informed (426 kB) the WTO of new FCM regulations (10.56 MB). The government will likely pass the regulations by the end of 2025, in which case it will come into effect six months later.
Brazil: SGS reports that the government has issued two documents for new legislation for regenerated cellulose film FCMs. The provisions will become effective on 28 February 2026.
EU: The European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & HealthCare (EDQM) has published a technical guide for cork FCMs. You can download the guide after filling in your details.
MERCOSUR: Keller and Heckman reports that MERCOSUR has adopted two resolutions related to cellulose and FCMs.
US: The FDA has added five new substances and three other new substances to its Inventory of Effective Food Contact Substances (FCS) Notifications, Keller and Heckman reports.
A recent PMMI report looks at the food safety and sanitation challenges faced by companies. The findings are based on insights from 130 surveys/interviews with industry professionals. You can download an executive summary after filling in your details.
California: Keller and Heckman reports that the California Assembly has passed SB 682, which requires DTSC to enforce prohibitions on food packaging that contains intentionally added PFAS as of 1 January 2028.

Claims, marking and labelling – rules and regulations
NEN (in Dutch) reports that ISO has published a new standard (ISO 8700:2025) specifying definitions and technical criteria for labelling and claims for plant-based foods and food ingredients.
EU: The EP AGRI Committee has adopted a report (1005 kB) with amendments to the rules on the common organisation of markets in agricultural products with the aim to strengthen the position of farmers in the food supply chain. New is amendment 645 reserving meat names like “burger”, “sausage” and “steak” exclusively for products containing meat.

Food Contact Materials (FCMs) – research
FPF has published a background article on the application, toxicity and regulation of bisphenols, particularly BPA, BPS, and BPF. UFZ researchers investigated the safety of 26 BPA alternatives and found that many BPA replacements are not safer. The study (5.12 MB) is published in Environmental Science & Technology. McGill researchers also warn that ‘BPA-free’ does not necessarily mean safe. They studied printed stickers on packaged food and found that some chemicals now used instead of BPA can disrupt the human ovarian cell function.
Researchers led by Minbei Vocational and Technical College tested different machine learning (ML) models to predict packaging chemical migration into food and water. The study (28.85 MB) is published in the International Journal of Food Properties.
 

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