A Familiar Hurdle

The second approach is to conduct extraction studies on the printed article to show that no more than 50 parts per billion (ppb) of any item not listed in CFR21 are present, he says. “The 50-ppb level is accepted as the limit for food migration issues being a concern. If any migration potential is less than 50 ppb, then essentially no migration occurs, and thus there is no food contamination, and thus the package (and the inks thereon) are safe for use,” Duncan explains. “This requires testing of a printed product. Depending on how conservative the customer is, it might require testing on a sample from every job. There are some clear EB coatings that are marketed for this approach, but it requires a partnership between the formulator and the coater to make sure the print job is fully cured to the level that was seen in the sample that was used for the original extraction study. This is a complicated approach, and has not seen wide acceptance in the marketplace.”