Analytical approaches for safety assessment in the development of innovative packaging solutions

Since many years, high attention has been paid to migration of contaminants from food contact materials to products. In particular, controls aimed at safety assessment are needed in the field of packaging that is continuously developing new solutions. Regarding plastic materials, the actual European regulation on Plastic Implementation Measures [1] provides the main analytical procedures to be followed in order to assure safety. Furthermore, innovative analytical approaches based on untargeted analysis, and aimed at the evaluation of the presence of non-intentionally added substances (NIAS), and emerging contaminants, have been developed [2-3]. This work describes some innovative solutions of active packaging based on the combination of different materials, and coating treatments on glass, wood, paper, and polymers, proposed to improve packaging performances. These treatments are often obtained using natural products, and are able to confer the materials new properties, such as antioxidant and antibacterial activity. In some cases, they even permit to achieve oxygen barrier or surface impermeabilization, allowing large applications in the field of food and cosmetics. Coatings are generally complex systems, whose composition is not easy to assess, and therefore it is difficult to evaluate potential migrations, even when the raw materials used are known. In fact, new compounds may derive from chemical reactions occurring during the technological processes of coating deposition. Consequently, analytical untargeted approaches have been developed, and gas-chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry, with the help of chemical databases, was used to identify the chemical structure of the compounds. A study related to the assembly of multiple materials, including secondary packaging, has also been performed, at first using simulants to perform untargeted analysis, then by building model systems, and finally analyzing packaged food products during shelf-life. An important related field of research regards the necessity of replacing single-use plastic items according to the new European regulation on waste management [4], and it is focused on the development of alternative materials. The choice of natural substances, such as agricultural by-products, is selected as promising solutions, although the origin of these materials does not exclude the presence of harmful molecules [5-6]. Starting from these sources, some new materials in form of edible films and spray preparations have been formulated, and are proposed to prolong food shelf-life of meat and fish products.