Printing Ink Problem Lingers

19 May 2011

Food inspectors pulled boxes of frozen vermicelli noodles off the shelves in Germany after they found 1,747 parts per billion of benzophenone in the product imported from Belgium. The government notified other countries of the violation through the EU's Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed.

Benzophenone (along with 4-methylbenzophenone, or 4-MBP) is used as a photoinitiator in printing ink. The noodles must have been packaged quite some time ago, since migration is severely constrained at low temperatures.

The vermicelli affair is not the only incident of its kind recorded in 2011. In late February Slovenia reported 198.9 parts per million and 2.01ppm of benzophenone in cake packings imported from Serbia. In March Germany reported drinking cups on its own domestic market, which had a sum of 685ppb of a few photoinitiators, including 2.4-diethyl thioxanthone.

Two years ago in April 2009, German authorities found the widely used 4-MBP in a chocolate crunch muesli product manufactured in Belgium. The cereal was packed in cardboard boxes from the Netherlands.

Belgian authorities later reported concentrations in the cereals of up to
3,729μg/kg.

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