Food Packaging and Shelf Life 23 (2020) 100468

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Food Packaging and Shelf Life

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Development of packaging factors for the risk assessment of food contact T

substances from food consumption survey of Chinese infants and toddlers
Wei Liua, Aidong Liub, Rong Zhaoa, Feng Panb, Zhaoping Liub, Haixia Suib,*, Jianwen Lib,*
a
Institute of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, Beijing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, 100013, China
b
China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment, Beijing, 100022, China

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: The consumption factors (CF) and food-type distribution factors (fT) for Chinese infants and toddlers aged 0–3
Food contact material were derived in this study, using food consumption and packaging usage data obtained from the China National
Food packaging Food Consumption Survey conducted in 2015. Food type grouping was based on existing standards from China,
Exposure assessment European Union (EU) and the United States (US), while packaging classification were done according to the
Consumption factor
exact material in contact with food. Plastics were learned to be the paramount material used for food packages in
Food-type distribution factor
this study, followed by coated and uncoated metal (tinplate and aluminum), and glass material found the least
application from the CF results. The fT calculated from this study demonstrated that the majority of polymer
materials were used to contact acidic type foodstuff and more than 90 % of coated and uncoated metals were
used for packing dry food, e.g. powdered infant formula. The CF and fT developed in the present work could be
applied to the estimation of dietary intakes of food contact substances for Chinese infants and toddlers aged 0–3
with the approach proposed by the US Food Drug Administration (FDA). The risk assessment result obtained
through this method would be more realistic than through the traditional EU conservative one.

1. Introduction concerns should be undergone a thorough scientific risk assessment,

Food contact materials (FCMs) are all materials and articles in-
tended to come into contact with food. FCMs play a key role in the
production, processing, storage, transport, preparation, serving and
consumption of food. Although facilitating the daily life of consumers
globally, FCMs have been criticized by the public and academia every
now and then for the health concerns arisen with the fast growth of
prepacked food in the diet of populations. The negative health effects
arguably caused by FCMs include thyroid dysfunction, breast cancer,
among others (Muncke et al., 2017). The culprits behind most of the
health risks are identified as the chemical substances migrated from
food packaging materials into food during contact (Ariosti, 2016). Some
of these chemicals are essential in the production of FCMs, such as
antioxidants (Samsudin et al., 2018), plasticizers (Kim et al., 2018), etc.
Another group of substances are also known as non-intentionally added
substances (NIAS) (Koster et al., 2015), including reaction by-products
(Martínez-Bueno et al., 2017), oligomers (Gelbke et al., 2019; Hoppe,
de Voogt, & Franz, 2018), degradation products (Bignardi, Cavazza,
Corradini, & Salvadeo, 2014; Oliveira, Ubeda, Nerín, Padula, & Godoy,
2019), etc.
Whether these chemicals are truly be responsible for the health
before regulatory bodies make risk management decisions (Geueke &
Muncke, 2018; Vilarinho, Sendón, van der Kellen, Vaz, & Silva, 2019).
A vast majority of risk assessment of chemicals for food contact appli-
cations are conducted in the European Union (EU) and the United States
(US), and they are frequently taken as international references. Al-
though, both the EU and the US require toxicological data and human
exposure data to perform the assessment, some steps are slightly dif-
ferent, such as approaches to estimate the human exposure. Presently in
the EU the specific migration limits are set assuming that for the sub-
stance under consideration, that 1 kg of food is consumed daily by a
person of 60 kg bodyweight and that the food is packaged in a cubic
container of 6 dm2 surface area releasing (European Commission,
2011). Since the methods are based on worst-case assumptions, the EU’s
approach to calculate human exposure is relatively crude and con-
servative, and often considered the first step screening method.
Nevertheless, last decade witnessed a trend towards smaller food packs,
so whether these assumptions are conservative enough for population
groups such as infants and children would remain to revisit (EFSA Panel
on Food Contact Materials, Enzymes, & Flavourings & Processing Aids,
2016). In the US, exposure estimations are based on combining
“packaging factors” with migrant levels in food or food simulants.

⁎
Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: suihaixia@cfsa.net.cn (H. Sui), jwli_cfsa@yeah.net (J. Li).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fpsl.2020.100468
Received 1 November 2019; Received in revised form 5 January 2020; Accepted 7 January 2020
Available online 17 January 2020
2214-2894/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
W. Liu, et al.
Packaging factors includes consumption factors (CF) and food-type
distribution factors (fT) (US Food & Drug Administration, 2007). Ac-
cording to the definitions set up by the US Food and Drug Adminis-
tration (FDA), the term “consumption factor’’ describes the fraction of
the daily diet expected to contact a specific packaging material (e.g.
polymers, paper and board, glass). And the “food-type distribution
factors”, which reflect the fraction of all food contacting each material
that is aqueous, acidic, alcoholic or fatty, specific for each packaging
material, were created at that time as well. The packaging factors are
then combined with migrant levels in food or food simulants and a total
food intake of 3 kg/person day−1 to calculate exposure to a food con-
tact chemical substance. The US methods are regarded as a refined step
compared with the EU methods, however, not a generalized method.
Because CF and fT derived from the US data are not necessarily similar
with ones from other countries. Another recently developed approach
to conduct risk assessment is using the Flavourings, Additives, and food
Contact materials Exposure Task (FACET) tool, which was funded by
the EU (Oldring, O’Mahony et al., 2014). FACET uses data provided by
regulators, academia and industry within the EU to output probabilistic
exposure estimation (Gelbke et al., 2019; Oldring, Castle et al., 2014).
Though the results are more refined and realistic, the FACET tool has
not been extensively employed.
In China, risk assessment of food contact materials is an emerging
research field. Scarcely studies could be found in literature until the
most recent days. Although the EU methods are relatively easier to
conduct, a realistic result of risk assessment instead an overly con-
servative one is always preferred. The US FDA’s CF and fT were used in
a few studies to estimate the exposure of migrated substances for risk
assessment (Wang et al., 2019), yet the results would be more con-
vincing if the packaging factors would have been derived from data
from their country of origin. Otherwise the uncertainty could remain to
reduce.
Recently, we reported a pair of pilot studies regarding the estab-
lishment of packaging factors (CF and fT), using alcoholic and non-al-
coholic beverage consumption and packaging usage data from survey
conducted in multiple provinces of China (Liu et al., 2019; Sui et al.,
2019). The methodology employed was similar to those used in the
works of Duffy, Hearty, McCarthy, and Gibney (2007) and Poças,
Oliveira, Pinto, Zacarias, and Hogg (2009). Both of them utilized food
consumption and packaging usage data from their own countries to
create packaging factors. Since the focus in our previous research was to
check the feasibility of the method, and only one food category in-
volved in each of the study, the application of the findings in the risk
assessment of FCMs, albeit viable, might still be limited. The present
study aimed to develop the food consumption factors and food-type
distribution factors for Chinese children aged 0−3 year from data
collected during the China National Food Consumption Survey (CNFCS)
completed in 2015. This work is a further effort to the establishment of
the food contact material safety risk assessment framework of China.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Food consumption and packaging usage data
The food consumption and packaging usage data used in this study
were from the China National Food Consumption Survey which was
conducted in 2015. The sampling method applied in this survey is
multistage, random cluster sampling and was performed in 43 sampling
locations in 15 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities in
China. The food consumption data and packaging use data from a total
of 20,303 children aged 0–3 were collected through three non-con-
secutive, 24 h diet recall face-to-face interviews that were carried out
on two weekdays and one weekend day, within a period of 3 weeks,
excluding holidays. Demographic information of the participants, such
as age and body weight, was also collected from this survey.
The food consumption information, including the type and weight
2
Food Packaging and Shelf Life 23 (2020) 100468
Table 1
Food type groupings.
Food type Foodstuff
Aqueous Plant Protein Beverage
Liquid milk
Acidic Juice & Juice drinks
Soft drinks
Canned fruit
Baby fruit & vegetable puree (jar, pouch & tub)
Yoghurt
Probiotics beverage
Fatty Baby pureed meat & fish (jar & tub)
Bakery products with surface containing free fat or oil
French fries
Sausages
Canned meat & fish
Canned food in oil
Other fried foods
Dry Powdered Infant formula
Baby cereal-based food
Dehydrated noodle
Frozen Chinese tradition foods
Candy
of the food and beverage, among others, was reported by the adult
proxy for the infants and toddlers from the same families. Data from
eating-out occasions was also collected. The trained interviewers from
provincial Centers for Disease and Control were responsible for package
information collection and preliminary verification.
According to the food grouping methods outlined in the National
Food Safety Standard of China GB 31604.1-2015 (NHFPC, 2015), Eur-
opean Council Directive 85/572/EEC (European Commission, 2011),
and the US FDA food grouping system (US Food & Drug Administration,
2007), each food item was assigned into one of the food types, corre-
sponding to the food simulants. The food types in this study includes
aqueous, acidic, alcoholic, fatty and dry. Namely, the “aqueous” food
means aqueous products and the pH are above 5.0, while the pH of a
“acidic” food is below 5.0; the “fatty” food includes mainly fried food
with surface containing fat or oil (e.g. bakery products, sausage) and
canned food of animal origins (fish and meat); the “dry” food includes
powdered infant formula and cereal based baby food, etc. The “alco-
holic” food was defined, but it was expectable that no food in this group
was registered, since participants are all below 3 years old. The food
type grouping was listed in Table 1.
Food packaging data were recorded at the same time with food
consumption data during the survey period. All packages were from
prepacked food (e.g. yoghurt, cookies and infant formula).
Homecooked food and kitchen utensils usage were not considered for
CF and fT calculation. Firstly, the packaging form was classified as
bottle, jar, can, cup/lid, flexible and liquid carton. Secondly, the food
contact layer of each packaging material was recognized and categor-
ized into glass, coated and uncoated metal, paper-based multilayers,
and polymers. Regarding to the food contact layer, only the main body
of the packaging was considered, which means lids from cup/lid
packages or closures, typically metal with inner coating, for glass jars
were not included. Additionally, the tinplate and aluminum were not
separated, and coated and uncoated metal materials were placed into
one group. Thirdly, the polymer group was further divided into major
types of plastic material: polyethylene terephthalate (PET), poly-
propylene (PP), polyethylene (PE) and unidentified polymers. The
latter means the exact material of the polymer could not been identified
or the material is a polymer-based mixture. The aforementioned steps
were performed based on the information identified on the food label
or/and the information provided by major food producers. A guideline
with pictures of examples was distributed to the interviewers to facil-
itate the sorting. For those material could not be identified at the scene,
mainly polymer, the packaging items were photographed and verified
W. Liu, et al.
by the consulting expert panel subsequently.
2.2. Quality control and verification of data
For the quality control and further verification of the collected data,
an interdisciplinary consulting panel consisting of experts on food sci-
ence and engineering, packaging material, and public health from au-
thority, academia and industry was formed. After the data was sub-
mitted, the consulting panel would be responsible for examining the
quality, and any disqualified data would be eliminated from the cal-
culation of the packaging factors. For example, if the foodstuff in-
formation and the corresponding packaging information did not match
each other based on the existing evidence (e.g. yoghurt in tin can), and
it cannot be verified by other means, including through the internet
search engine, this piece of data would be considered disqualified and
discarded. Additionally, data match one of the following situations
would be considered for further correction by the consulting panel, and
it was entirely based on the packaging information provided by the
corresponding food manufacturers: a) the outer packaging was regis-
tered instead of the inner layer that directly contacted with food. For
example, cereal-based baby food products from some major food pro-
ducers were packaged in laminated aluminum foil bag with a paper-
based outer package, if their products were recorded in paper-based
packaging group, the data would be manually changed into a laminated
aluminum foil bag, and the food contact layer would be PE accordingly.
b) the packaging form and the material didn’t match each other, the
material information would be corrected according to the packaging
form, only if the evidence was adequate. For example, a number of
dairy producers used PP cup to contain yoghurt, if the packing form of
their yoghurt products was cup/lid, the packaging material would be
PP, otherwise correcting manually.
2.3. Calculations of packaging factors
To calculate the consumption factors (CF) and food-type distribu-
tion factors (fT), the verified data was analyzed, and individual daily
food consumption was obtained. Firstly, participants with the data
matching the following scenarios, would be excluded: a) participants
had no prepacked food consuming records during the survey period; b)
participants only reported two days’ data, regardless of whether the
third day had food intakes or not. c) the age and body weight in-
formation of the respondents were not registered along with their food
consumption data. Moreover, two variables were introduced: a) Apfm -
the participant p’s the daily consumption of food f per body weight that
specifically contacted with packaging material m; b) ApfmT - the parti-
cipant p’s daily consumption of type T food that specifically contacted
with packaging material m. In the definitions, “daily” means the food
consumption data with the same food type and packaging material
group were summed, then divided by 3(day). The participants were
divided into two age group: 0- < 6 months (group I) and ≥6-36 months
(group II). Because, in China, infants are recommended to be fed with
solid food or cereal-based food from 6-month-old. The CF and fT were
calculated for both groups and as a whole.
The consumption factor (CF) in the US FDA definition describes the
fraction of the daily diet expected to contact specific packaging mate-
rials. The CF represents the ratio of the weight of all food contacting a
specific packaging material to the weight of all food packaged.
Accordingly, the consumption factors in this study could be calculated
as indicated in the following equation:
p Apfm
CFm =
m ( p Apfm )
Where CFm is the consumption factor of packaging material m (e.g. m =
glass); Apfm is explained above, and the numerator p Apfm is the sum of
each participant’s the daily consumption of food (the weight of all food)
3
Food Packaging and Shelf Life 23 (2020) 100468
that specifically contacted with packaging material m; the denominator
is equal to the total amount of each participant’s the daily consumption
of prepacked food-in other words, corresponds to the weight of all
packaged food.
The food-type distribution factor (fT) in the US FDA definition is for
each packaging material to reflect the fraction of all food contacting
each material that is aqueous, acidic, alcoholic and fatty. In the present
study, the “dry” food type was also defined and was included in the fT
calculation, while the fT of alcoholic food, since no consumption data
recorded, was not considered. The fT was calculated separately for each
specific material in contact with the food, using the following equation:
p ApfmT
fmT =
T ( p ApfmT )
where fmT is the food-type distribution factor of packaging material m,
meaning fraction of packaging material m that is used with food of type
T, and T is one of the four food types: aqueous, acidic, fatty and dry.
ApfmT explained above, and the numerator p ApfmT is the sum of each
participant’s daily consumption of type T food (the weight of all type T
food) that specifically contacted with packaging material m. The de-
nominator is equal to the total amount of each participant’s daily pre-
packed food consumption, which means the sum of the numerator over
all four food types.
3. Results
The amount of food consumed by Chinese infants and toddlers ac-
cording to the packaging status, food type and age group were sum-
marized in Table 2. The average daily food (packaged and unpackaged)
intake of all the participants (20,303) was 1010 g·day−1. Of which,
15,691 children (77.3 %) had qualified prepacked food intake records
along with their age information, and the mean daily intake of pack-
aged food of these respondents was 116 g·day−1 with an upper per-
centile of 313 g·day−1 (P95). Taken all age groups into account, the
most frequently consumed prepacked food type was dry food, followed
by fatty, acid and aqueous food. 11,751 respondents had dry foods
documented in their food diaries, approximately twice of those had
eaten acidic (5009) and fatty (5801) food. The aqueous food, which had
the highest mean value of intake (135 g·day-1 per person), earned the
least children consumed (2296). And averagely, only 21 g of food from
fatty group were consumed by the young children per day in this
survey. The number of children in group II is ten times (14,311) of that
in group I (1380). Comparing the two age groups, the average intakes of
4 different type of food varied except for the dry food, and they were in
the same descending order as aqueous, acidic, dry and fatty, respec-
tively.
Consumption factors and food-type distribution factors were cal-
culated for the two age groups and for all eligible respondents as a
whole, and the results are demonstrated in Table 3. Since toddlers in
group II accounted for 90 % of all qualified children surveyed, the CFs
of group II were just slightly different with CFs of the total respondents.
Generally speaking, total polymer class has the highest CF level of
0.542, followed by “coated and uncoated metal” of 0.316, and “paper-
based multilayers” of 0.134. The “glass” group has the minimal CF of
0.008. Within the polymer class, the CF of PE, PET, PP and unidentified
polymer are 0.280, 0.034, 0.008 and 0.220, respectively. The fT
(Table 3) represents the fraction of the different types of food in contact
with each contact material. Coated and uncoated metal were pre-
dominately used for dry foods packages (fT = 0.9426) and “paper-based
multilayers” was used mainly for containing aqueous foods (0.4538).
Both “total polymer” and glass were primarily used for packing acidic
foodstuffs (0.4456 and 0.5563, respectively). For sub-group of polymer
class, PP has a major application in acidic foods (0.9895). The fT of PET
for aqueous, acidic and fatty foods were 0.0419, 0.4621 and 0.4960,
respectively.
W. Liu, et al. Food Packaging and Shelf Life 23 (2020) 100468

Table 2
Amount of food consumed (g·day−1) according to packaging status and food type.
Percentile

N Mean SD Minimum P50 P75 P95 Maximum

Daily Food intake(g·day−1)

All food (packaged and unpackaged)
0–36 months 20303 1010 679 0.3 961 1345 2219 5415
Packaged all food
0- < 6 months (group I) 1380 73 62 0.7 57 108 189 392
≥6-36 months (group II) 14311 121 127 0.3 88 153 322 2667
0–36 months 15691 116 123 0.3 85 148 313 2667
Intake of different foodstuffs from packaged food(g·day−1)
(0- < 6 months, group I) Aqueous 4 99 120 7 58 178 273 273
Acidic 20 29 42 0.7 15 34 128 197
Fatty 51 9 7 1 7 13 22 32
Dry 1344 74 62 0.7 60 110 189 392
(≥6–36 months, group II) Aqueous 2292 135 165 2 83 163 400 2080
Acidic 4989 106 107 0.3 72 133 293 2500
Fatty 5750 21 25 0.3 13 27 65 687
Dry 10407 74 59 0.7 60 95 179 900
(0–36 months) Aqueous 2296 135 165 2 83 163 400 2080
Acidic 5009 106 107 0.3 70 133 293 2500
Fatty 5801 21 25 0.3 13 27 65 687
Dry 11751 74 59 0.7 60 96 180 900

4. Discussion
4.1. Food consumption and packaging usage data
The ultimate purpose of the present study is to ensure the safety of
food packaging materials contacting with food and beverage consumed
by infants and toddlers. Hence, efforts have been made to comprehend
the dietary of these groups of population. From the food consumption
data collected in this survey, dietary patterns of infants and toddlers
have some characteristics to be stressed. It is noticed that the leading
consumption of the prepacked food is powdered infant formula, fol-
lowed by liquid milk and yoghurt. In China, breastfeeding is strongly
encouraged across the country, especially for the first 1000-day of the
baby. Since the feeding mode was not a point of interest of this re-
search, the data used in this study only represented the packed food
intakes of Chinese young children. Dairy products, including liquid milk
and yoghurt, are the most frequent consumed prepacked food by
Chinese infants and toddlers, due to their nutritional benefits.
Currently in China, the materials of some food packages were la-
belled by the food or food packaging producers. For example, most of
the plastic bottles for containing beverage is PET, and cups for con-
taining yoghurt is PP. The latter was different with data acquired from
the Netherlands (Bouma, Stavenga, & Draaijer, 2003). Apart from these,
a number of major food manufacturers provided the packaging material
information and has been used in this study. From this information,
multiple materials usage in common were summarized. a) Infant for-
mula has mainly four kinds of packaging formats with different mate-
rial: tinplate cans (coated and uncoated metal), laminate aluminum foil
bags (PET/AL/BOPA/PE), paper-based multilayer (PET/Paper/AL/PE)
boxes and polymers boxes, and the exact material contacted with food

Table 3
Consumption factors (CF) and food type distribution factors (fT) derived from China National Food Consumption Survey of children aged 0–3 years.
Age Material CF fT

Aqueous Acidic Fatty Dry

0- < 6 months Polymer 0.272 0.1005 0.0109 0.0151 0.8735
(group I) PET 0.001 0.0000 0.0000 1.0000 0.0000
PP 0 – – – –
PE 0.243 0.0003 0.0085 0.0123 0.9789
Unidentified Polymer 0.028 0.9679 0.0321 0.0000 0.0000
Paper-based multilayer 0.061 0.0053 0.0011 0.0000 0.9936
Glass 0.003 0.0000 0.8951 0.1049 0.0000
Metal -coated & -uncoated 0.664 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 1.0000
≥6–36 months Polymer 0.558 0.1728 0.4583 0.1193 0.2496
(group II) PET 0.035 0.0419 0.4630 0.4951 0.0000
PP 0.009 0.0000 0.9895 0.0088 0.0017
PE 0.282 0.0833 0.2504 0.1730 0.4933
Unidentified Polymer 0.232 0.3084 0.6912 0.0004 0.0000
Paper-based multilayer 0.139 0.4656 0.3134 0.0085 0.2125
Glass 0.008 0.3158 0.5492 0.1327 0.0023
Metal -coated & -uncoated 0.295 0.0538 0.0106 0.0006 0.9350
0–36 months Polymer 0.542 0.1708 0.4456 0.1163 0.2673
PET 0.034 0.0419 0.4621 0.4960 0.0000
PP 0.008 0.0000 0.9895 0.0088 0.0017
PE 0.280 0.0793 0.2385 0.1651 0.5171
Unidentified Polymer 0.220 0.3132 0.6864 0.0004 0.0000
Paper-based multilayer 0.134 0.4538 0.3054 0.0083 0.2325
Glass 0.008 0.3093 0.5563 0.1321 0.0023
Metal -coated & -uncoated 0.316 0.0476 0.0092 0.0006 0.9426

4
W. Liu, et al. Food Packaging and Shelf Life 23 (2020) 100468

are polymer coating, PE, PE and HDPE, respectively. b) most of the

packaging material for carton milk and yoghurt is actually paper-based

Ireland Children (5–12

multilayer material - PE/Paper/AL/PE, and even some of the multilayer

years) 2003-2005 data

material has more layers, the inner layer contacted with food is PE (not
paper), either way. c) a number of pouched packaging material is a
mixture of multiple polymers. For example, Ecoclean® pouch is a kind
of mixed material. Instead of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC)

0.130f
0.829
0.033
0.129
0.332
0.248

0.017
0.036
(Poças et al., 2009) and attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform
infrared (ATR-FTIR) technique (Duffy, Hearty, Gilsenan, & Gibney,
2006), the interdisciplinary consulting expert panel played a key role in

Portugal Children (1–12

the identification and verification of the materials. In the FACET pro-

years) 2007-2008 data

ject, multiple European FCM trade associations provided the informa-
tion on relative substance used in the manufacturing of primary
packaging FCMs (Oldring, O’Mahony et al., 2014). But, in China, there
is still a long way to get all stakeholders involved.

0.43d

0.02e
0.41
0.14

0.05

0.01
–

sum of the CF of Low-Density Polyethylene (LDPE) (0.12), Linear Low-Density Polyethylene (LLDPE) (0.06) and High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) (0.13).
4.2. CF and fT

Portugal Adults & Children

CF and fT were originally introduced by the US FDA to be used in the
estimation of the daily intake of a food contact substance. Until re-

2007-2008 data
cently, only a few works on the development of CF and fT could be
found in literature. Apart from the methodology used in each work,
these studies also differentiated in the aspects of target population,

0.23d

0.04e
0.56
0.26

0.23

0.06
0.1
dietary patterns and era of the research (Table 4).

–
It is shown, in Table 4, that plastics were the predominant material
used for food packaging in the four countries involved, except for The US Adults & Children

the polymers from coatings of metal and paper-based materials were not included, so the value is comparable to this study.
Chinese infants age 0–6 months and Portugal children (1–12 year-old), Accessible on 2019
while the glass usage was the least category. A distinct fact is that the
CF of coated and uncoated metal material was in the second place for
the infants and toddlers of China in this study, partly because the infant
formula was the primary prepacked baby food. In the presented work, 0.31b
0.16
0.04

0.17
paper-based multilayer group, identical with the “multilayer (multi-
0.4a

0.2c
0.1

the multi-materials group in Pocas’ research is similar to the paper-based multilayers group of this one.
–
material) packages group” in Poças et al.’s work (Poças et al., 2009),
included all paper-based multilayer materials and accounted for 13.4 %
of the food package usage. Same level of CF was obtained in the Duffy
China Children (0–36
months) 2015 data

et al.’s work (13.0 %) (Duffy et al., 2007). The CF of PET in this research
equals to the one of Duffy et al.’s result (0.033), presumably because
similar dietary habits were observed in both studies.
The fT derived from this study are listed in Table 3. The food clas-
0.542
0.034
0.008
0.280
0.220
0.134
0.008
0.316

sification was different with the previous works in literature, for ex-
ample, “dry” food is not included in the US FDA’s food grouping system
(US Food & Drug Administration, 2007), hence comparison between
China Children (≥6-36

each other indicates no valuable conclusions. Nevertheless, some notes

months) 2015 data

sum of “Total paper and board” and “Plastic and paper and board”.

could be summarized. For all the respondents as a whole, plastics ma-

terials were mainly used for packages contacting with acidic food
(fT = 0.4456), followed by dry, aqueous and fatty foodstuff. Within this
Comparison between consumption factors from different studies.

group, PE, the inner layer of typical multilayers materials, was used to
0.558
0.035
0.009
0.282
0.232
0.139
0.008
0.295

pack dry foodstuff, such as powdered infant formula and cereal-based

baby food; PET had almost even application (46.21 % and 49.6 %) in
acidic and fatty food packaging; Nearly 99 % of PP were used for
China Children (0- < 6

packing acidic foods. The latter was the most noticeable distinction
months) 2015 data

the value is for the polymer-coated paper.

compared with the findings from other studies, since both Poças et al.
(2009) and Duffy et al. (2007) found that PP was used in significant
sum of coated and uncoated metal.

proportions in fatty and dry food products. In additions, Coated and

uncoated metal were the primary materials for the dry foods packaging.
0.272
0.001

0.243
0.028
0.061
0.003
0.664

The fT of Group I were significantly different from ones of Group II.

–

The children in this study were divided into two age groups based on
Country Population Time of

the fact that infants are recommended to be fed with solid food or
Metal -coated & -uncoated
Paper-based multilayers
Unidentified Polymer

cereal-based food from 6-month-old in China, and barely food intake

other than breastfeeding or infant formula prior to that age could be
observed. The fT of polymer, paper-based multilayer and coated and
uncoated metal for dry food in Group I demonstrated the fact that those
materials were chiefly used for packaging dry foodstuff (infant for-
Polymer
Table 4

PET

Glass

mula).
PE
PP
data

d
b
a

e
c

5
W. Liu, et al.
4.3. Limitations of the research and recommendations
This work is one of the first initiatives to establish the consumption
factors and food-type distribution factors for the risk assessment of food
packaging materials used in China. To the best knowledge of the au-
thors, no such work, focusing on the all food categories, from China has
been published. Therefore, a thorough limitation analysis of the pre-
sented research would facilitate the improvement of future works, and
help in using packaging factors more precisely in the risk assessment of
food contact materials.
The most noticeable limitation was from the data collection period,
since information bias is inevitable in 24-hr diet recall face-to-face in-
terviews. For example, the weight of food might come from the esti-
mation of the parents at times. Since the families were randomly chosen
to take part in the survey and not necessarily with food packaging or
material science background, some of them did not fully understand the
materials of the food packaging, and might have discarded the packages
before the survey began. Hence, the verification was more difficult for
either the interviewers or the consulting panel. Also, the parents pre-
ferred to report “plastics” rather than the exact polymer material,
leading to the CF of the unidentified polymer group being over-
estimated.
This survey exclusively focused on the food consumption and
packaging of Chinese infants and toddlers, whereas kitchen utensils
(Kuang, Abdallah, & Harrad, 2018) and baby bottles (Eckardt, Greb, &
Simat, 2018; Onghena et al., 2016) were not taken into consideration,
which would result in the underestimation of the risk. This limitation
was explained in the FACET project that food packaging was reckoned
the most important category of FCMs (Oldring, O’Mahony et al., 2014).
Besides, as for the packaging forms with more than one kind of material
in contact with food (e.g. glass jar with coated-metal lid), only mean
body of the packages was included in the calculation of the packaging
factors, which presumably leads to an inaccurate estimate of risks from
materials of lids or closures.
Last but not least, some major food manufacturers generously pro-
vided the food packaging material information of their products based
on the production lines of the year of 2018, but the survey was con-
ducted in 2015, which cause another uncertainty.
According to the above-mentioned limitations, future works could
improve with the following recommendations.
• The food packaging database should be updated regularly, as the
ever-increasing demand for packaged food from customers. And
food packaging information from all stakeholders are welcomed,
especially from the industry.
• Interviewers should be trained properly to ensure the accuracy of
food packaging information. And digital documents are always en-
couraged to create by the interviewers in case of doubt.
• Regulations about labelling the type of material on the packages
should be reinforced by the authorities so as to facilitate information
collection.
• Other food contact materials, in addition to packaging materials
should be included in the future study, only if the improved meth-
odology is available. Same thought applies to lids and closures.
5. Conclusions
The consumption factors and food-type distribution factors for the
exposure assessment of food contact substances were developed, using
food consumption and packaging usage data obtained from the survey
of Chinese children aged 0–3. By applying the packaging factors derived
from the present work to the estimation of dietary intakes of food
contact substances, a more realistic result in line with the Chinese na-
tional conditions could be expected, comparing with using the crude
conservative method. Limitations of the research were analyzed and
recommendations for further correction and improvement were listed.
6
Food Packaging and Shelf Life 23 (2020) 100468
Due to the different consumption patterns and dietary habits among
regions and countries, it should be prudently when using the pair for
the risk assessment in a different region. The authors would like receive
data from other sources, particularly from industry, to further refine the
findings, and similar research focus on the entire population is also
under study.
Data statement
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current
study are not publicly available due to policy of the National Health
Commission of the People’s Republic of China but are available from
the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Funding
This research was financially supported by Guangdong Key R&D
Program (No. 2019B020210002) from Department of Science and
Technology of Guangdong Province and the National Key R&D Program
of China (No. 2018YFC1603104).
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Wei Liu: Data curation, Formal analysis, Writing - original draft,
Writing - review & editing, Validation. Aidong Liu: Investigation,
Validation. Rong Zhao: Formal analysis, Resources. Feng Pan:
Investigation, Validation. Zhaoping Liu: Conceptualization,
Methodology. Haixia Sui: Conceptualization, Methodology,
Supervision, Validation. Jianwen Li: Investigation, Supervision,
Validation.
Declaration of Competing Interest
None.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the supports from the pro-
vincial disease control and prevention centers in data collection.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary material related to this article can be found, in the
online version, at doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fpsl.2020.100468.
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