Quality and safety of eco-sustainable materials for food packaging applications

This “Innovative Ph.D. of industrial feature” project is focused on the study and development of innovative eco-sustainable technological solutions in the flexible food packaging sector aiming to improve two main aspects of current industrial interest: the eco-sustainability and the safety of food packaging materials. Currently, the environmental problem related to the disposal of plastics and the increasingly stringent directives that the various countries are adopting to fight against the environmental pollution deriving from plastic materials have directed research towards the development of eco-friendly materials that can substitute the conventional plastic ones. The packaging sector is the one that uses the highest amount of plastic, thus, the use of the so-called “biopolymers” in the food packaging field could be a strategy to reduce the environmental impact generated by the traditional plastics materials. However, their large-scale diffusion is still limited for strong technical limitations related to their poor processability with traditional equipment and lower mechanical, thermal and barrier performances than the conventional plastics. A food package must guarantee the toxicological safety of the packed food and an emerging issue in this field concerns the so called “Non-Intentionally Added Substances” (NIAS), which are compounds that, although not intentionally added, may be present in food contact materials and migrate into the food, being therefore a potential risk for human health. The presence of NIAS in food packaging materials has been recognized for the first time in EU Regulation 10/2011. However, their risk assessment is a very challenging task and there are no protocols made by the authorities on how it can be performed. Therefore, the comparison of different methods for their risk assessment and the analysis of the causes and conditions of formation of NIAS is of fundamental importance to improve the quality and toxicological safety standards of food packaging, considering also a possible more stringent evolution of the European legislation on this topic. The objectives of the present research project are the improvement of the sustainability of the food packaging, trough the development of flexible packaging solutions made by innovative and biodegradable materials, with a particular focus on packaging for frozen food applications and for oxygen-sensitive products, and the improvement of the safety of the food packaging, trough the study of the migration of Non Intentionally Added Substances (NIAS) in conventional packaging films. This project has been performed in partnership with L’Université de La Réunion (France), specialized in the biochemical and microbiological analysis of food and the BluPlast S.r.l. company, operating in the production of films for packaging applications... [edited by Author]