Food Contact Regulations USA 2022

Nhat Nguyen is a US licensed attorney with over 9 years of global regulatory compliance. He currently serves as the Chief Analyst for Enhesa Product Intelligence and leads a new department which provides further insights and solutions to Enhesa Product Intelligence's customers on regulatory compliance, technology and scientific data regarding chemical and chemical products. 

Dr Muldoon Jacobs is the current Acting Director for the FDA’s Office of Food Additive Safety (OFAS).  OFAS is responsible for ensuring the safety of direct and indirect food additives, colour additives and GRAS substances as well as supporting safety and innovation in food from new plant varieties and made with cultured animal cells.  At FDA and USP she served as toxicologist with expertise in the safety assessment of FDA regulated products including food ingredients, indirect and direct additives, dietary supplements and drug impurities. Extensive knowledge in use of standards to support regulatory systems globally to ensure quality and safety of products as an expert to JECFA and ICH committees. She is an internationally recognised expert in the application of new and alternative safety and risk assessment methods such as TTC, QSAR and read-across methodology and has published over 30 peer reviewed publications in areas related to her expertise.  

George Misko is one of the firm's Food and Drug practice group leaders. Mr. Misko's practice focuses on food and drug matters and environmental concerns, including pesticide regulation, right-to-know laws, and toxic substance control regulations.

Mitzi began her legal career at Keller and Heckman in the firm’s Washington, DC office where she experienced firsthand the mechanics of US regulatory agencies. Recognizing the need for food-contact expertise on the West Coast, she relocated in 2018 to Keller and Heckman’s San Francisco office, which she currently manages. Since her time in San Francisco, Mitzi has helped numerous companies understand the nuances of various state and local laws and regulations, including California’s Proposition 65, the Rigid Plastic Packaging and Container Program (RPPC), and the State’s plastic bag legislation.

Dr. Pace is a scientist with broad experience in global regulatory affairs, analytical laboratory services and operations, food packaging materials testing, and product stewardship. Within the expansive environment of regulatory packaging compliance, he has specialized expertise in chemical migration assessments and analytical testing of food-contact and sensitive packaging materials, focusing on migratory substances from printing inks and packaging chemical compositions. Dr. Pace routinely conducts migration and exposure assessments of packaging materials according to regulations of the U.S. FDA, the EU Commission, and California Proposition 65.

Wolfgang Urhahn currently holds the position of Director, Global Compliance in the Supply Chain Standards & Operational Excellence team at tms (HAVI), Chicago (USA). With over 30 years of experience in consumer products, including food packaging, specialty chemicals and pharmaceuticals, he has held roles both in the United States and in Europe. Prior to HAVI he was REACH Team Leader for ChemADVISOR (UL), where he built and established the REACH Services program and the Global Chemical Regulatory Report program. These programs covered REACH Consulting and Only Representative Services, and included the preparation and submission of registration dossiers, pre-registrations, C&L notification dossiers, alternative chemical name request dossiers, and compliance audits. He has also held additional product safety, quality, and product development roles with Henkel (Germany), 3M Europe (Germany), Rhone-Poulenc (France), Janssen-Cilag (Belgium) and Nattermann (Germany).

Bethany Woods is a driven leader in consumer product safety with a niche in food compliance.  At BASF, she is responsible for ensuring food contact compliance for the dispersions and resins business. When Bethany takes her seat at the table, she brings experience from multiple touchpoints throughout the value chain from the raw material supplier to brand owner. She is customer-centric and known to develop and implement tools to merge regulatory compliance with business needs securing long-term profitability. She continues to use her voice to collaborate on best practices in industry groups such as the Food Safety Alliance for Packaging, National Association for Printing Inks Manufacturers, and PLASTICS. 

Based in Washington D.C., Melanie Rybar supports Enhesa Product Intelligence as the expert on North America regulatory content. She has spent her career in the chemical manufacturing industry, conducting regulatory analysis, risk management reviews, developing new products and processes for companies making surfactants, functional polymers and other specialty chemicals intended for use in consumer products.

A toxicologist for 15+ years, Dr. Markley specialises in human health risk assessment, food safety, genotoxicity, metals toxicology, nanotoxicology and carcinogenesis.  She graduated from Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi with a Bachelor of Science in Biology, received a Ph.D. from the University of Maine in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, and held an FDA ORISE postdoctoral fellowship.  She has worked in non-profit and consulting before her role as a Toxicology Reviewer at FDA.  She began at the Office of Food Additive Safety in 2018 and her current duties include reviewing pre-market notifications of food contact substances and supporting several complex post-market issues related to regulatory science, safety review and policy.  

Matt Savidge is an experienced toxicologist within the product safety and regulatory fields, with a demonstrated history in risk assessment of food contaminants and non-intentionally added substances. Currently, Matt serves as a Group Leader within knoell, advising expert toxicologists in the food and biocides regulatory areas. Prior to joining knoell, Matt worked as the senior toxicologist responsible for the global dermal repellent portfolio at S.C. Johnson, where he advised on active ingredient strategy within different regulatory frameworks. Matt’s career started off at the United States Food and Drug Administration where he became an expert in the assessment of contaminants in foods and dietary supplements. Matt obtained his Master of Public Health in Toxicology with a focus on epigenetics from the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor and is an active member of the Society of Toxicology.

Guillaume Letellier is a regulatory toxicologist with Intertek Assuris. Guillaume now serves as a Sr. Manager, Toxicology and is responsible for assessing the safety of our clients’ products. Guillaume obtained his Master of Science in Toxicology from the University of Western Brittany, France. He is an active member of the French Society of Toxicology and is a EUROTOX certified toxicologist. In 2013 Guillaume joined Intertek France in Paris as a safety assessor for the cosmetic industry and was embedded within one of the world's leading cosmetics companies as a project manager until his transfer to the USA in 2016. He is now focused on assessing cosmetic, OTC, and food contact substances for our clients. As a result of his experience, Guillaume has an extensive knowledge of the cosmetic and food regulations worldwide and works diligently with his team to make sure our customers’ products are globally compliant and safe for the consumers.

Evert is a chemist and European registered toxicologist (ERT), his current role as director food safety & toxicology and has been at Siegwerk for the past seven years. Before then he was at Henkel for fifteen years, with his last position as Global Head of Regulatory Affairs. He is globally responsible for food safety, toxicology and packaging regulations and has more than twenty years involved in association affairs, e.g. CEFIC, ECETOC, AISE, CEPE, EuPIA. Evert is the chairman of the EuPIA NIAS risk management task force.

After completing a BA in Russian Studies, Greg has extensive experience in international business development and training, and speaks multiple languages including French, German, Russian and Serbo-Croatian. After 5 years of international business development in patent information services, he joins Chemical Watch as International Business Development Manager.

Dr. Bronk is currently a manager in the product stewardship group at W. R. Grace (Grace). Her current focus is on regulations affecting the specialty catalyst business line at Grace. Her work includes applying food contact regulations and chemical control laws to Grace’s products and providing compliance statements to customers regarding those regulations.

Mike Schade is the Seinor Director of Programs and Strategy at Toxic-Free Future. Since 2013, Mike led Toxic-Free Future’s Mind the Store program challenging retailers to shift the marketplace away from hazardous chemicals and develop comprehensive safer chemicals policies. Prior to joining TFF Mike was Markets Campaign Coordinator with the Center for Health Environment & Justice (CHEJ) where he led campaigns to phase out PVC plastic, phthalates, and bisphenol A in consumer products and packaging, and led the Buffalo office of a statewide environmental health organization. He has a BS in Environmental Studies from the University at Buffalo.

Martha Marrapese is a sought-out legal and policy advisor on matters where technological advancement, environmental protection and governance intersect. Her clients are solving today’s major environmental security issues including climate change, PFAS, and ocean plastics. Martha frequently consults on plastics, electronic waste and battery recycling, and extended producer responsibility. She is a leading expert on chemical control under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), as well as initiatives that advance biobased, sustainable products.

Maryann Sanders has a M.S. in Occupational and Environmental Health from Wayne State University and has worked in Product Stewardship for 25 years. Her work tenure has included time at BASF, NSF International and global consulting firms.

Kathryn (Katie) Skaggs is an expert in the regulation of food contact materials in a host of jurisdictions including the U.S., EU, South America (particularly the MERCOSUR bloc), Canada, China, eastern Asia, India, the Middle East (GCC), Australia, and New Zealand.

Dr Bernard Hegarty is Director of Enforcement Policy with the Food Safety Authority of Ireland. He manages the official food control programmes, including the controls on national and EU laws on food contact materials. He represented Ireland at the European Commission’s Working Group on Food Contact Materials, which develops the harmonised European legislation, from 2000 to 2009. He co-chaired the Council working group that developed Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004. He chaired the Council of Europe’s Committee of Experts on food contact materials from 2006 to 2007. He has a BSc and a PhD in Chemistry and an MA in Public Management.

As a representative of the industry, Neto understands well the needs of providing sharp product stewardship strategies, and not just for compliance reasons. He believes that an intelligent support links regulatory affairs to both product development and marketing analysis -it multiplies the rate of success of projects and helps to achieve a shorter time to market while focusing on regulatory excellence. At TNS Nano, Neto guides IP, EHS, HazCom and QA actions to ensure a compliant chemical portfolio and to keep the operations in accordance to regulatory best practices. Neto is also a member of the Brazilian Association of Technical Standards’ Special Studies Commission for Nanotechnology.

Marco has been involved in food contact materials for more than 20 years. He is now serving as the expert in various organisations: The member of Reviewing Committee for Chinese National Food Safety Standards, The member of Standardisation Committee for plastic food contact material, and Standardisation Committee for food contact paper, etc. To date, he has published more than 100 papers in journals and academic conferences regarding the safety of food contact materials. He was assigned by authority since 2014 to draft a serial of Chinese FCM standards including multilayer packaging, wood and bamboo, paper and paper board, as well as analytical methods for specific migration.

Nick has 13 years’ experience in Food Contact material Safety & Chemical Regulation, whilst heading different positions in TUVR in Asia Pacific region and Greater China region related to Food Contact materials and chemical regulation. A senior expert to support multinational corporation for the regulatory compliance and product safety evaluation for various products (including Food Packaging, kitchenware, household appliance and food processing machinery etc.) for major markets (EU, US, China, Japan, Mercosur etc.) He has a Bachelor of Science in Applied Chemistry.

Reynold D'Souza works at the Global Product Compliance Group (GPC) as a Senior Consultant. He has fair experience of more than 30 years as a R&D professional in basic and specialty chemical industries. He has worked in the printing ink area and has helped on food packaging laws such as IS 15495-2020.