Test methods to simulate high-temperature exposure.

A study was carried out to compare the actual overall migration from packaging materials into food simulants during heating in a microwave oven, and the overall migration from these materials into food simulants applying time and temperature conditions stipulated in the current EC and Dutch legislation on food packaging. It was demonstrated that the requirement by some food packaging regulations to conduct migration tests in a conventional oven using test conditions that are more stringent than the conditions occurring in practice results in excessively severe and unreasonable test conditions. On the basis of the results obtained additional test conditions (e.g. 30 min and 1 h in combination with test temperatures exceeding 121 degrees C, and a test temperature of 130 degrees C) are proposed to be inserted in existing food packaging regulations to enable realistic migration testing of microwave packaging materials under conventional test conditions. It is concluded that the overall migration behaviour of packaging materials intended for microwave oven use, including microwave-active (susceptor) materials, can be judged on the basis of migration testing using conventional heating. The suitability of iso-octane as a volatile fatty food simulant for the determination of the overall migration under high-temperature test conditions was also investigated. For most samples investigated a good agreement was observed between the overall migration values obtained with olive oil applying both microwave and conventional heating, and those obtained with iso-octane under conventional conditions.