Mrs. Sumalee Tangpitayakul, Deputy Director General of Department of Science Service (DSS), and Dr. Wandee Luesaiwong met Dr. Catherine Simoneau, Director of EURL-FCM, and Dr. Eddo Hoekstra, Project Leader, at Joint Research Center, Ispra, Italy on 22nd September 2014.Dr. Catherine Simoneau informed

that she acknowledged of being ASEAN Reference Laboratory for Food Contact Material of Department of Science Service from a representative of European Union. And she provided information of EU concerning issuing legislation, regulating and supervising for risk assessment of food and food contact material, supervising and exchanging technical information with National Reference Laboratories for inspection of food, issuing standards and technical service center of EURL FCM which support technical information based on science for food contact materials in order to making policy concerning EU. Then Mrs. Sumalee Tangpitayakul informed about roles and activities of AFRL for Food Contact Materials. Next the meeting continued with technical discussion and exchange information of testing food contact materials which Dr. Catherine Simoneau suggested biennial bilateral exchange of EURL-FCM and Department of Science Service.  After that Mrs. Sumalee Tangpitayakul and Dr. Wandee Luesaiwong visited laboratories of EURL-FCM such as laboratories which study Non-intentionally Added Substances (NIAS) and organic compounds in plastics using GC-MS and LC-MS techniques and a laboratory for analysis of heavy metals using ICP-MS technique.

International Conference Food Contact Compliance

          Mrs. Sumalee Tangpitayakul, Deputy Director General of Department of Science Service (DSS), and Dr. Wandee Luesaiwong attended the first International Conference Food Contact Compliance at Baveno, Italy during 24th-26th September 2014. The conference included workshop on 24th September and conference on 25th-26th September.

          The workshop included topics as follows :

• Database for global legislation on food contact substances, food additives, contaminants, flavours, etc.
• Database of substance known by Council of Europe and used in Food Contact Materials
• Conformity of paper and board for food contact
• Petitioning in USA, China, Japan, EU and EU-MS
• Exporting in Thailand and other ASEAN countries (presented by Sumalee Tangpitayakul, Deputy Director General)

The conference was divided into 4 sessions as follows :

• Laws in EU

               This session provided information of new draft laws and laws concerning food contact materials, inks, mineral oils preparing by various member states. It also included topic of EC specific guidances on migration and modelling.

• NIAS and other issues

               This session began with a topic of “NIAS and Road Map: industry position”. Then there were  four presentations on claration of compliance, GMP : compliance with EU regulation 2023/2006 and its confirmation and Main needs to assure food contact quality in Polyolefins packaging as well as Relationship between FCM law and REACH.   

• European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)

                This part included presentations of  role and organization of EFSA and its methodologies in risk assessment, Draft of new Guidelines of FCM (TTC approach), Estimation of exposure in FDA and in EFSA and the issue of critical population and How to close the gap between the legal requirements and reality? 

• Main International laws

                This part provided information of laws and new laws concerning food contact materials of USA, Canada, China, Japan, India, Korea, Russia and South Arabia.