Search Results for: food

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has declared safe using plastics ingredient bisphenol A (BPA) in food packaging, following widespread concern about its effect on reproduction and hormones. EFSA scientists have re-evaluated BPA after studies showed significant differences between humans and rodents in exposure effects, undermining previous mice tests.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) researchers have developed new test models for assessing the likely migration of plastics ingredients from packaging into foodstuffs, which they say will save manufacturers from underestimating contamination, risking expensive recalls.

The EU ‘FOODMIGROSURE’ project, led by Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging (IVV), have developed mathematical models based on extensive tests using various plastics and foodstuffs: one shows how plastics ingredients move about in plastic; another shows how these substances migrate from plastic packaging material into food at the contact surface; and a third model describes how the migrants disperse in the food itself.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IT is maybe reassuring that during an era where food companies must increasingly grapple with often complex global and regional cross-border trade, health, packaging and marketing regulations, there is one international organisation that actually designs rules with their practical use in mind.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Organization for Standardization (ISO) (NOTE – USES AMERICAN SPELLING FOR ITS NAME) has released formal guidelines on the abilities and experience required of auditors judged able to assess whether food handling businesses and organisations comply with key ISO health and safety standards.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has declared safe to consumers the use of plastics ingredient bisphenol A (BPA), even in food packaging, following widespread concern about its effect on reproductive systems and hormones. EFSA scientists have re-evaluated BPA after studies showed significant differences between humans and rodents in exposure effects, notably that people metabolise and excrete BPA far faster, limiting the relevance of previous mice tests.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) expert panel has recommended powdered infant and follow-on formulae manufacturers regularly use tests for the ‘enterobacteriaceae’ family of bacteria, to help identify the presence of the pathogen E sakazakii. It is an enterobacteria and EFSA says “monitoring enterobacteriaceae in the processing environment and in the product… would be expected to reduce the prevalence of E sakazakii.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SPECIAL tests have been requested by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), using new techniques to assess whether BSE could spread to cattle from fish-feed from meat-reared farmed fish. EFSA’s Scientific Panel on Biological Hazards was asked to investigate after the European Parliament resisted lifting a European Union (EU) ban on feeding fish-feed to ruminants.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
CHINESE scientists may have found a way for people who suffer from seafood allergies to eat prawns without the fear of an adverse allergic reaction. The Ocean University of China, Qingdao, has found that treating prawns with a combination of heat and irradiation significantly reduced the level of reactive allergen proteins found in the food.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced another 28 protected food products that can only be marketed in the European Union with their traditional name, if they are produced in their home region using time-honoured production methods. Newly protected products include Corsican olive oil; Flemish almond cake Geraardsbergse mattentaart; Irish Connemara ‘hill lamb’; and others: see http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/newsroom/en/252.htm…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Damascus
OVER the past six years Syria, once a byword for proto-Soviet state control and autarky, has opened up its economy and implemented investment laws that allow foreign companies to set up shop. But few multinational food companies have wised up to the opportunities within an emerging market of 18 million consumers.…