Corrugated Board is used for the packaging of a variety of goods. It offers unique properties making it ideal for, but not limited to, transit packaging. Corrugated Board is widely used in food packaging. Corrugated Board is not only used for food contact. As the requirements for safe foodstuffs have gradually become more stringent, and although specific regulations are yet to be finalised, FEFCO (as the representative of the European Corrugated Board industry) realised that it was necessary to take action to anticipate their customer requirements.
The members of FEFCO took part creating a standard that created four different hygiene standards in the period 1997 to 2001 as follows:
Guide for Good Manufacturing Practice of Paper and Board Articles Intended for Food Contact Use published by the Club MCAS (France).
Hygiene Code for Dutch Corrugated Board Industry published by Vereniging Golfkarton (Netherlands).
Technical Standard and Protocol for Companies Manufacturing and Supplying Food Packaging Materials for Retailer
Branded Products published by BRCGS (IOP) (UK).
French Professional Code of Hygiene and Cleanliness for the Manufacture of Corrugated Board Packaging» published by ONDEF (France).
To achieve a uniform approach FEFCO decided to form a working group that would use the best of the existing standards, taking into consideration other existing standards such as American Institute of Bakery (AIB International) to produce an International GMP standard for Corrugated Board.
The responsible committee decided that the standard has to give certification bodies the possibility to audit against the standard with a pre-defined audit format so uniformity and transparency could be guaranteed to the users of the corrugated product.
Scope of the Standard
To cover the manufacturing of packaging products made of corrugated to satisfy policy and market requirements for Good Manufacturing Practice such as required by the manufacturing of food contact materials.
Download the FEFCO GMP Practice Standard for Corrugated board
