Minutes of the FCMJEG 2nd October 2024 meeting

Joint Expert Group on Food Contact Materials (JEGFCM) 

Meeting of the FCMJEG at 10:00 on 2nd October 2024 online via MS Teams

Public Meeting Notes  

Present

Contents

Interests  

1. The Chair reminded those attending the meeting to declare any commercial or other interests they might have in any of the agenda items. It is necessary to declare interests, as per the Code of Practice for Scientific Advisory Committees and Councils (CoPSAC, 2021). Members should ask themselves whether the public would reasonably consider that the interest in question might influence them (and thus their perceived independence). 

Item 1: Welcome and Apologies    

2. The Chair welcomed all attendees to the meeting. Apologies were received from Dr. Emma Bradley and Mr Adam Hardgrave.  

Item 2: Matters arising  

3. An application update with the overall progress of all FCM applications was presented to the FCMJEG Members. More detailed updates on the following applications were given by the Secretariat: RP1898, RP262, RP1415, RP1642, and RP2147.  

4. Members were informed that the Committee Advice Document (CAD) for RP1741 would be reviewed by the Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (COT) in October and the CADfor RP1862 in December.   

5. RP1702 was presented at the COT meeting in July 2024 and amendments and clarifications were suggested. RP1702 was presented to FCMJEG Members during the current meeting.  

6. The safety assessment of TMBPF-DGE has now been published.  

Item 3: Minutes of the last meeting –28th August 2024 

7. The FCMJEG accepted the minutes as an accurate record of the meeting, subject to minor editorial changes.  

Item 4: Review of the Fourth draft Committee Advice Document for a Plastic Additive (RP1702)  

8. The Group first reviewed the application in their February 2023 meeting. Following this, a Request for Further Information (RFI) was issued to the Applicant. The applicant provided additional information, and an update paper with the additional information was presented to Members at the July 2023 meeting. In the October 2023 meeting, the first draft of the Committee Advice Document (CAD) was presented to Members, and the second draft of the CAD was presented in February 2024. The CAD was presented to the COT in July 2024. The COT agreed it was important that the FCMJEG address why they did not consider cholinesterase inhibition to be a concern in the CAD. The COT also noted that EFSA discussed the threshold of toxicological concern (TTC) and read across, whereas the FCMJEG did not include this in their assessment. 

9. The draft CAD and the COT comments were presented to the FCMJEG at the August 2024 meeting. 

10. At the present meeting the FCMJEG further discussed the comments from the COT.  

11. The FCMJEG noted that concerns of high exposure from the substance were reduced by its ionic properties and stability, and the group decided not to include an exposure estimate from milk in the CAD. 

12. As for the TTC, Members agreed there was not enough data to calculate a TTC, particularly for infants. This was due to reservations the FCMJEG had on the concentration of calcium tert-butylphosphonate that would need to be used in this calculation.  

13. The Secretariat will perform the requested changes and provide an updated draft for review by email correspondence to the COT and FCMJEG in due course. 

Item 5: Chopped Carbon Fibre in the manufacture of polyether ether ketone (PEEK) plastic materials and articles intended to come into contact with food (RP2147)  

14. The FCMJEG first reviewed the application during their April 2024 meeting. Following this, a RFI was issued to the Applicant. The Applicant’s response    to the RFI was presented at this meeting and had previously been discussed in August.  

15. The FCMJEG discussed the Applicant’s responses regarding the analysis of impurities and the migration testing. Members also reviewed several sections of the dossier. They concluded that further information and clarification would be required on some of these experiments before proceeding with the assessment. 

16. Following a thorough review of the documents presented by the applicant the FCMJEG stated that there had not been adequate attempts to determine the chemical structures of the peaks identified and questioned the value of the information without structural assignments.   

17. The FCMJEG reviewed the questions which would be asked in the next RFI. They were happy with the questions drafted based on the previous meeting and the questions from the present meeting will be added to this document. The questions in the current RFI regarding the sizing and overall migration would inform future decisions on the assessment.   

18. The Secretariat agreed to draft an RFI to be sent to the applicant. 

Item 6: Any Other Business 

Recap of the site visit 

19. The FCMJEG and Secretariat visited a plastic recycling plant to see how the process was carried out. It was considered a valuable experience and enjoyed by the Members. 

EDQM Symposium   

20. This conference was attended by Members of the Secretariat and saw presentations from policy officials, scientists and stakeholders from across Europe. There were discussions on a number of topics including the harmonisation of rules for and analysis of FCMs. 

SAC Chair’s meeting Update 

21. The SAC chairs meeting update was attended by a FCMJEG Member. At the meeting there was an update from Robin May (Chief Scientific Advisor) on the work carried out by the FSA. 

22. Chairs from other committees also attended and gave updates and information on the dossiers that were being reviewed at the time. It was good opportunity to connect with the wider FSA. 

Item 7: Date of next meeting    

23. The next meeting will be on the 4th of December 2024. This will be a hybrid meeting held at Clive house and on Microsoft Teams.