Food-packaging chemicals: from chaos to clarity

 You shouldn't be eating certain chemicals. But you have no choice if you choose processed and  packaged food to eat. 

You won't be able to see these chemicals with your eyes. So you think the food you are eating is safe.

Some of us can smell some of them. I usually do. Even in bottled water. Certain sweets. Processed food. That is why I avoid them. 

If you have a super sensitive nose or taste buds like me, you too will be  careful with these foods.

But unfortunately, most people can't do what I do. So they consume  food that shouldn't be consumed in the first place. 

That's why researchers are trying to help these people.

Image source: Vecteezy

Packaged food usually sits in plastic-lined bags designed to keep air, moisture and contaminants out. That same protection can also increase the chances of chemicals from the packaging seeping into the food. When a chemical raises health concerns, industries often swap it for a molecular cousin, a substitution that may either be genuinely safer or simply be too understudied to know whether it is harmful. With thousands of chemicals in use, one-by-one regulation can't keep pace, so untested replacements can slide through unchecked.

In a recent study published in Environmental Science & Technology, researchers identified 15,159 chemicals known to come into contact with food, either intentionally used in manufacturing or found migrating from packaging. They matched these chemicals against official regulatory safety data to identify those linked to serious health effects, including cancer, reproductive harm and hormone disruption.

They identified 1,222 chemicals used in food packaging that regulators have reviewed and found to pose serious risks to human health. More than 4,000 chemicals were classified in hazardous priority groups, and 70% of these closely related chemicals lacked adequate safety data, increasing the risk that they could be introduced as regrettable substitutions.

Chemicals from packaging, processing equipment and other food-contact materials can end up in the food we eat. Currently, at least 2,160 food-contact chemicals (FCCs) are known to migrate into food, and some, including certain bisphenols and ortho-phthalates, are already regulated in some parts of the world because of concerns about their health risks.

Regulation often pushes manufacturers to replace one chemical with a near-identical alternative. BPA, for example, has been replaced with BPS, but because the two chemicals are structurally similar, BPS may carry many of the same toxic effects. This creates a dangerous loophole where a chemical is restricted on paper, but the health risk may simply be replaced rather than removed.

Evaluating chemicals one by one could take ages, since the number of potentially harmful chemicals is in the thousands. So, one smart option is to group similar chemicals, which would help flag them as substances that can be avoided or regulated.

The grouping process began with the researchers collecting information from two major databases: one tracking intentionally used manufacturing ingredients (FCCdb) and another tracking chemicals actually detected in packaging test extracts (FCCmigex).

After filtering, researchers narrowed it to a master list of 15,159 chemicals. They checked each one against safety data from 15 regulatory and intergovernmental sources, flagging any officially recognized as highly toxic to humans. These flagged chemicals make up the FCCprio List.

From there, they ranked the evidence into four tiers. At the top are chemicals proven to leak into food and already confirmed in the human body through biomonitoring studies. Just below are chemicals also proven to leak into food, but with no biomonitoring confirmation yet. Further down are chemicals pulled out of packaging under lab conditions, with no proof that they actually leak in real-world use.

At the bottom are chemicals used in manufacturing that have never been tested for migration. Ninety-four chemicals were placed in the hazardous top tier.

Of the chemicals on the master list, 67% appeared only as substances intentionally used in manufacturing, while 24% emerged only through testing that detected chemicals migrating from packaging.

To make regulating these thousands of chemicals manageable, researchers grouped them by chemical structure and identified 38 priority groups, such as PFAS, bisphenols and phthalates, that contain an exceptionally high concentration of known toxic chemicals.

The researchers noted that a chemical's absence from the list does not mean it is safe. While the search for hazards must continue, rapidly phasing out chemicals already known to be hazardous has to be the priority.

Reducing exposure to hazardous or untested FCCs will also require broader approaches, including studying how chemical mixtures interact and testing finished food-contact materials for biological activity.

Helene Wiesinger et al, Prioritizing and Grouping Food Contact Chemicals: From Chaos to Clarity, Environmental Science & Technology (2026). DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.5c15186