Sustainable and safe use of metals and metal alloys as food contact materials

Purpose and goal:

The goal is to create a fundamental and applied understanding of how foods of different chemistry, with a focus on new plant-based, compared to animal-based foods, interact and affect processes such as local corrosion, metal migration and surface properties of stainless steel used as food contact material for food manufacturing, processing, storage and transport. This knowledge is crucial from a food safety perspective, to ensure the safe and sustainable use of materials, and ensure that set limit values for metal migration into food are not exceeded.

Expected results and effects:

In addition to generating both fundamental and applied mechanistic understanding of the interaction between stainless steel and food of different chemistry, the research results are expected to provide direct advice to industry on which alloys should be used for different foods and how they should be cleaned during, and between repeated use to ensure that established low limits for metal migration are not exceeded, thereby endangering food safety. The results are also crucial for improving the current EU food safety framework.

Approach and implementation:

The project is coordinated by KTH and is divided into 5 WPs with different academic and industrial leaders. Crucial to project success are highly committed members who understand the goals of the project and work towards their fulfilment, follow set time frames and agreements, are open-minded, follow codes of conduct, follow established safety rules, continuously communicate research questions and results to the coordinator and within the project team, conduct research of the highest quality and communicate and publish research results in accordance with established agreements.