Dive Brief:

• The FDA is banning theuse of three long-chain perfluorinated compounds (PFCs),曾经commonly used in food packaging, the agency announced at the end of last year. The ban is in response to a petition for the PFCs' removal filed by public interest groups.
• New data has linked these three PFCs结构类似的有毒化合物,否定any "reasonable certainty" that they wouldn't be harmful when used as food-contact substances.
• The PFCs were usedto repel oil and water for packaging made of paper and paperboard that contained aqueous and fatty foods until 2010 when the FDA identified safety concerns regarding the use of long-chain PFCs.

Dive Insight:

By October 2011, many manufacturers had voluntarily discontinued their use of the substances, but because there wasn't an official ban by the FDA, not all manufacturers may have done so.

The FDAcalled for the removal ofthe use ofpartially hydrogenated oils (PHOs), the main source of artificial trans fats,earlier this year, giving manufacturers three years to reformulate their products without them or ask for special permission to use them.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), one of the interest groups that filed the petition, also hopes the FDA will look favorably onanother petitionfrom NRDC and others that wouldban the use ofseven food additives found to be possibly carcinogenic.

Reformulating products without the use of banned substances like trans fats or PLCs means manufacturers have to focus funds inmore R&D, marketing, and packaging.