On November 26, 2021, the Germany’s Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture adopted the 21st Amendments, updating the "Consumer Products Regulations" again. This update is mainly to increase the relevant provisions of printing or varnishes for food contact materials and products in the "Consumer Products Regulations". The amendments were published in the Federal Law Gazette on December 7, 2021, and came into force on December 8, 2021, with a transition period of four to five years.

The 21st Amendments to the German Consumer Goods Regulations regulates the use of printing or varnishes for food contact materials and products. It mainly introduces a positive list of authorized substances, and specifies the corresponding restrictive requirements for the permitted substances. Authorized substances include monomers or other starting materials; colorants; solvents; additives and photoinitiators. For the specific list and restrictive requirements, see Annex 14 (Table 1-Table 4) of the Regulation.

Table 1

List of monomers or other starting materials, colorants, solvents, photoinitiators and other additives;

Table 2

In addition to Table 1, a list of colorants that may be used in printing or varnishes for food contact materials and articles under Article 4(7);

Table 3

Sum migration guide values of the substance;

Table 4

Limits for certain specific substances (barium, iron, cobalt, copper, lithium, manganese, zinc and primary aromatic amines)

It is worth mentioning that this regulation has set different provisions for printing or varnishes for direct contact and non-direct contact in food contact materials, and the colorants listed in Table 2 of Annex 14 are only applicable to printing or varnishes for non-direct contact. Germany officially incorporated printing or varnishes for food contact materials and products into national regulations this time, and the management and control of such materials has been standardized and improved. For more details, please refer to the original regulations.

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