P & P 2019: More than just a conference

This year over 200 leaders in the packaging industry came together at the P&P conference – Plastic and Paper in Contact with Foodstuff – one of the most important and renowned conferences at this topic. The event took place on December 3-5 in Amsterdam.

There are always changes regarding classifications of substances in this sector because of increased knowledge (new studies or improved analytical capabilities). This is why you always have to be updated regarding the latest legislation as well as about selection and use of raw materials and its risk assessment.

Our Head of Product Safety Europe, Paolo Bonamigo, was one of over 40 Speakers at this conference and talked about the fact that – as a committed member of EuPIA – we take our responsibility to manufacture safe printing inks very seriously: “We have to make sure that neither our employees get in contact with substances with high hazard profile nor our costumers processing them”. He appeals that risk assessment is a reliable tool to evaluate the impact of use of substances based on their hazard profile.

Changes of classifications are sometimes quite challenging for our branch because they can trigger the need for a substitution according to the EuPIA Exclusion Policy, which may lead to a resource-intensive reformulation process. During such process we face many issues, like:

• Researching of a technical alternative
• Securing access to the raw material
• Validating the new product with customers
• Managing the shift from old to new product

But all the effort is worth dealing with, because it makes food packaging even safer. That’s why risk assessment should become a widely used method and industry-wide mindset. Because we all should be ink people who care.