Coatings for food-compatible environments. Proposal for a test protocol toverify suitability of coatings for environments in which food is manufactured packaged, stored, consumed

Recent E.U. directives and the massive introduction of the HACCP technique in Italy have focused a new attention on all the problems related to food s afety, not least the problem of risks from the environment in which food is manufactured, stored, packaged or consumed. This paper is dealing, in part icular, with those coatings which are applied on walls of the above mention ed environments. This issue, differently from the topic of coatings for con tact with foodstuff, has not been Fully discussed. Scope of the work is to identify, using rational methods, the risks related to the presence of coatings in the environment. The principles and test me thods so defined will be useful, in the Authors' intention, to contribute t o the definition of a comprehensive test protocol for the evaluation of the characteristics of coatings on a pass/fail basis. This methods may hopeful ly replace empirical or unappropriately used practices, giving people in th e field solid judgement criteria.