EFSA’s Updated Administrative Guidance on Food-Contact Materials Subject to Authorizations Now in Effect
The European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) updated its administrative guidance to implement new provisions required by the Transparency Regulation (EU) 2019/1381 and are applicable both to applications for new authorizations and modifications of existing authorizations. (See the PackagingLaw.com article, New EU Transparency Regulation to Apply from March 27, 2021, for more information on this regulation.)
The administrative guidance documents apply to applications for authorization of food-contact materials (FCMs) subject to EU-harmonized legislation and submitted as of 27 March 2021. The table below presents an overview of the EU regulations on FCMs subject to authorization for which administrative guidance has been issued.
| FCMs group | Applicable legislation | Administrative guidance |
| Plastics | Plastics Regulation EC 10/2011, as amended (consolidated version of 23 September 2020) | Administrative guidance for the preparation of applications on substances to be used in plastic food contact materials (update 2021) |
| Recycled Plastics | Recycled Plastics Regulation EC 282/2008, as amended (consolidated version of 26 October 2015) | Administrative guidance for the preparation of applications on recycling processes to produce recycled plastics intended to be used for manufacture of materials and articles in contact with food (update 2021) |
| Active and Intelligent Packaging | Active and Intelligent Packaging Regulation (EC) No 450/2009 | Administrative guidance for the preparation of applications on substances to be used in active and intelligent materials and articles intended to come into contact with food (update 2021) |
As with the original guidance, the updated versions describe the procedure and associated timelines and the documentation to be provided for applications to be reviewed by EFSA as well as information on the different possibilities to interact with EFSA during the life-cycle of the application from the pre-submission phase through the adoption and publication of EFSA’s scientific opinion.