Food Packaging Materials: Risks of Contamination

Food packaging performs multiple essential functions: it protects, preserves, contains, markets, stores, and facilitates the transport of food products. Throughout the food supply chain, packaging plays a critical role in maintaining food quality, safety, and shelf life. Growing consumer expectations and evolving market trends have contributed to the emergence of increasingly advanced and innovative wrapping systems. These innovations aim to improve functional performance while responding to sustainability and safety concerns. Despite these advantages, packaging materials pose environmental challenges due to their high production volumes, short lifespan, and waste management difficulties. Although recycling is essential for reducing waste, it may nevertheless lead to the accumulation of hazardous substances in packaging materials, which may migrate into food and present health risks to consumers. Mass transfer and chemical equilibrium govern the migration process, and this interaction can negatively affect human health when chemical substances from packaging penetrate food matrices. Potential migrants include compounds such as antioxidants, antimicrobial agents, deliberately added chemicals, unintended by-products, as well as monomers, oligomers, and nanoscale particles. The following paper reviews the potential hazards linked to materials used in food packaging, focusing on contamination mechanisms, migration phenomena, and the advancements in analytical techniques designed to identify packaging-derived hazardous substances in food.