Cu in Contact with Food

Some food products are brought into contact with copper vessels during their production process. This contact may lead to increased copper concentrations in the end product.  Recently, the Committee of experts on packaging materials for food and pharmaceutical products, Council of Europe, are defining a limit maximum value of copper migration into foodstuff.

Click here to view the ECI comments on the CoE proposals

The ECI comments are mainly based on the copper Voluntary Risk Assessment (VRA, 2008).  The copper RA report was peer reviewed by EC Technical Committee for New and Existing Substances (TCNES) and the EC Scientific Committee for Health and Environmental Risk (SCHER).  The copper Risk Assessment report and its reviews are available from the European Chemicals Agency website. From the copper Risk Assessment report, a safe Upper Limit (UL) of 0.16 mg/kg body weight/day or adult UL of 10 mg/day (60 kg) is obtained and allows the derivation of Specific Release Limits (SRL) for respectively adults and children:

- The Specific Release Limit (SRL) value of 5 mg Cu/kg food, proposed for plastics, is adequate to protect the general adult population (60 kg).

- A SRL of 2.6 mg Cu/kg food is derived for children (1-3 yr). This very conservative SRL value is acceptable if translation of an upper limit from adults to children is consistently used for all food contact materials. Such SRL for children is however not consistently derived for all materials.

In line with the comment made for iron, the following addition is therefore proposed : "The EVM noted that the guidance value is not meant to protect" a small portion of the population who has increased susceptibility to copper overload, via a mechanism of unregulated absorption from the diet, associated with Wilson disease and other metablic disorders of copper homeostasis".

The exemption for "traditional production methods" as proposed by the CoE is still needed (see "Release due to traditional use, as referred to in Regulation (EC) N° 1935/2004, falls outside the scope of this SRL.")

Click here to view the human Health effects chapter of the copper Risk assessment report (2008)

Click here to view the opinion of the EC Technical Committee on New and Existing Substances (TCNES) on the Human Health effects chapter of the copper Risk assessment report.

Click here to view the opinion of the EC Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks (SCHER) on the Human Health effects chapter of the copper Risk assessment report.

Click here to view the review on information on copper content in "traditional production methods"

  

For more information, please contact Katrien Delbeke at kmd@eurocopper.org