Safety standard for food packaging a must

Safe packaging is one of the vital components of ensuring sustainability and food safety in Bangladesh. Keeping this in mind, the government needs to raise awareness about the packaging supply chain with an aim to ensure food safety aspects of packaging materials, Jatin Takkar, Head of Product Safety and Regulatory Affairs at Siegwerk, recently said in an exclusive interview with The Business Post’s Shamim Ahmed.

Why do you think safe food packaging is important?

Food is the first thing we should focus on because that is what we consume. The company which makes food does not deliver packages. But we have to see how the other things around it impact food items. The first purpose of safe packaging is to protect food so that it doesn’t get contaminated.

Packaging which is supposed to protect food can also cause contamination. Obviously once a company has taken care of food safety aspects from a food point of view, then their focus will shift to everything else that can impact food safety, be it logistics or packaging.

How do you see the regulations in Bangladesh in terms of the safety of packaged food?

It all starts with awareness. I think awareness in Bangladesh is improving and it will eventually turn into a regulation. It’s the same thing which happens everywhere. Such awareness will lead the brand owners and regulators to bring regulations over the issue.

Now we have started talking about packaging safety and I am sure that it will be picked up by a lot of brand owners or regulators.

Bangladesh Food Safety Authority (BFSA) already has a packaging safety regulation but it has to take the regulation to a next level.

How many toxic chemicals are probably used in packaging ink?

What happens globally is that the chemicals are classified. For example, some chemicals which may have been good before might not be good today because new reports and studies show that chemical is not safe.

Toluene is a chemical that falls under reprotoxic category 2. It is a time when companies can use toluene-free inks from a safety perspective.

Toluene is not used in European or US markets for food packaging. But like Bangladesh, India was also using the toluene solvent for long due to its costing. Every country would like to work with something economical unless and until people will start talking about its negative impacts.

And regulations are very important as it has a big role to play in terms of level playing field. When regulation comes, it makes a mandate for everyone to change for the good of the nation and we see it happening in Bangladesh soon.

How much safety measures Siegwerk has taken in Bangladesh?

Siegwerk, a Germany-based company, is globally committed to toluene-free operations. With a global expertise, we are aware that toluene is not a chemical that one should have in their inks. And we have a strong commitment towards providing toluene-free inks. And hence when we started our operations in Bangladesh, we were committed to our toluene-free operations.

What are the challenges ahead of Bangladesh in terms of safe food packaging?

I don’t think there is a big challenge. The only thing sometimes people are very much concerned about is the cost, but I think, over the long run, with the economies of scale, everything can be taken care of. And I always say that the cost of compliance is always much less than the disaster of non-compliance.

It’s the responsibility of every stakeholder in the supply chain. Anybody supplying ink, packaging and plastic materials needs to behave responsibly towards food safety. And I firmly believe that everyone needs to join hands to ensure safe packaging.

Workshops and sessions should be organised to create awareness. And these should be organised, especially by the regulators.