Dr. Paul Honigfort is the Director of the Division of Food Contact Substances, Office of Food Additive Safety, which is part of the United States Food and Drug Administration (US FDA). The Division of Food Contact Substances is the segment of the US Government responsible for all regulatory actions for all materials that contact food, including food packaging.
Dr. Honigfort has over 18 years of experience with food contact materials and food additive regulations. As Director of the Division of Food Contact Substances, Dr. Honigfort oversees all US Government regulatory matters pertaining to food packaging. Dr. Honigfort is also the United States Delegate to the Codex Committee on Food Additives, which formulates international standards on the safe use and fair trade of food additives. Prior to his time at FDA, Dr. Honigfort worked for GE Plastics as an Advanced Materials Developer specializing in engineering thermoplastics and food packaging materials. Dr. Honigfort received his doctorate in polymer science in 2000 from the University of Akron in Akron, Ohio, USA.
Joan Baughan practices food and drug law, focusing on US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and comparable international regulation of food contact materials, drugs, cosmetics, and medical devices. With a distinctive legal and scientific background in microbiology and medical technology, Joan helps clients establish regulatory compliance for their products globally, performs compliance audits and training seminars, and represents companies and trade associations before US agencies and their international counterparts.
Joan Baughan also developed substantial experience in Brussels, counselling clients on the regulation of food packaging materials and medicinal products under European Union and Member State legislation.
Dr. Zhongwen Wang is a scientific evaluator at Food Packaging Materials and Incidental Additives Section, Chemical Health Hazard Assessment Division, Bureau of Chemical Safety, Food Directorate, Health Products and Food Branch, Health Canada. Her main responsibility is to conduct premarket assessment for the chemical safety of food packaging materials.
Dr. Wang has been with Bureau of Chemical Safety for more than 10 years. Prior to this, she worked in food research area. Her expertise includes food analysis, organometallic analysis, environmental analysis, etc. As a principle investigator, she has participated in various horizontal projects, such as, Chemical Management Plan (CMP), Canadian Total Diet Study (TDS), the Maternal-Infant Research on Environmental Chemicals (MIREC), Northern Contamination Program (NCP), etc. Her research provided useful datasets for Canadian food safety evaluation.
Dr wang holds a Ph. D. degree in environmental analytical chemistry from Chinese Academy of Sciences, and she pursued her post-doc research in environmental and clinical analysis in University of Alberta.
Professor Ariosti is a Chemical Engineer (1981, National University of Buenos Aires) with two post-degrees: a Master on Food Science and Technology (1983, National University of Mar del Plata) and a Specialization on Plastics Conversion Technologies (2005, National University of San Martín).
He received scholarships for technical training on food packaging and other sanitary applications of plastics, at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (Roma, Italy) (1987), the Svenska Quality Management Group (Stockholm, 1987), the Japan Packaging Institute/JICA (Tokyo, 1991), and the Iberoamerican (Latin America + Spain + Portugal) CYTED (Science and Technology for Development) Program Center (Antigua Guatemala, 2002).
He works at the National Institute of Industrial Technology (INTI) - Plastics Centre of Argentina since 1984, dealing with food packaging, materials interactions with foodstuffs, packaging and environment, and regulatory issues. He has been Deputy of the Plastics Centre (1997-2002) and also its Director (2002-2007). Now he is mainly involved with senior technical assistance and training, and with the MERCOSUR Packaging Group for the development of FCMs regulations.
Since 1991 he represents INTI at the MERCOSUR Food Packaging Group, which developed the block regulations on different food contact materials, and since 1984 at the Argentine Institute of Standardization and Certification (IRAM).
Ms. Xiaolu Wang is a Senior Chemical Regulatory Compliance Consultant with 3E. Xiaolu has over eight years of experience working in the field of EHS compliance, focusing on regulatory compliance for consumer packaged goods (CPG), including food, food additives, food contact materials, cosmetics, and personal care products. Xiaolu is a frequent speaker at the Global Food Contact Conferences and serves as a member of the Advisory Board.
Xiaolu is a licensed attorney admitted to the bars of the State of New York, District of Columbia, and China. She is a native speaker of Mandarin Chinese and is fluent in English.
Tina Robertson is a Senior Regulatory Affairs Manager, Food Contact Materials at knoell USA LLC, based out of Chicago. She provides regulatory support and to ensure compliance of food contact materials, reviews product compositions in accordance with global regulations, and prepares registration dossiers of food contact materials (FCM) in USA, EU, and Asia. She has a law degree from the University of Alabama, School of Law and is a member of the Illinois state bar. She has a background in assessing and maintaining regulatory compliance for the food contact consumer goods industry in a variety of markets including US and EU as well as years of industry experience in a compliance role for food contact packaging ranging from plastic dairy closures to infant formula lids.
Bastiaan Schupp works since mid-2011 as legislative officer on food contact materials in DG Health and Food Safety of the European Commission. His main responsibly is the implementation of the specific measures on food contact materials presently in force, particularly on plastics, recycled plastics, and he participates in general policy development on food contact materials. He joined the Commission in 2005 and has worked on various risk related topics, including societal vulnerability to dangerous chemicals and man-made risks. He is a chemical engineer and has a background in risk management.
Alistair manages the Food Packaging Safety Section within Smithers. This involves advising clients on the safety legislation which applies to food packaging in a wide range of different countries throughout the world and coordinating work programmes to ensure that clients' products meet these requirements. His expertise spans all the EU countries, USA, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Israel, Russia and all the South American countries.
Alistair graduated with a degree and PhD in Chemistry from Birmingham University. After working for BP and the Department of Health, he joined Smithers in 1994, taking up his current position in 1995.
Hélène has been working for over 20 years for the Finnish forest industry company, Metsä Board. She has held various positions within the R&D, product development as well as in the production unit.
Currently she works as a Barrier Development Director in Metsä Board’s Development function. Her main focus is the development of dispersion barrier coated boards and their applications. Previously, she worked closely in the customer interface where she entered deeply into customers’ requirements in order to find solutions for their packaging challenges.
Anthony has been with TerraCycle since 2012 when he joined the TerraCycle Canada team in Toronto as a Business Development Manager. Since then, he has helped TerraCycle and Loop partners work towards their sustainability goals in both the B2C and B2B space. As the EVP, Business Development for both TerraCycle and Loop, Anthony develops the company-wide sales strategy and manages TerraCycle Inc.’s 60+ person global sales. Anthony has 15+ years of business development experience and prior to joining TerraCycle he worked in Toronto, Dijon, Budapest, and Vienna for some of the world’s largest professional service firms and financial institutions.
Jenny is the Chief Sustainability Officer at Trivium Packaging and a seasoned global leader with experience from big brands like Shell and Avery Dennison. As a Dutch national, sustainability is in her DNA and her true passion. She believes sustainability is no longer a choice, but an imperative for the success of any company. At Trivium she is committed to positively impacting the lives of millions of people through the company’s sustainable and circular product offerings.