Pidilite Industries Ltd, established in 1959, is a pioneer in consumer and specialties chemicals in India. Fevicol has become synonymous with adhesives to millions in India and is ranked amongst the most trusted brands in the country.
Pidilite has about 25+ manufacturing locations in India and abroad .We have 3 fully equipped in-house R&D centers in India and 5 in international markets, namely Singapore, Thailand, Brazil, Dubai & USA. We have a strong market outreach in Indian subcontinent and in more than 60 countries in the export market.
On the Industrial front we serve Customers with Pigments, Textile Auxillary Chemicals, Industrial bonding solutions, Industrial Resins for Coatings, Industrial Adhesives, Leather Chemicals and Footwear Adhesives.
We are one of the few companies who offer wide variety of technologies under one roof. Ours is a Multi Divisional Company, and our Industrial adhesive division offers high performance Water based and Hot melt adhesives for the following Industries-
? Lamination – Semi automatic and Automatic machines
? Carton manufacturing – Mono , shipper boxes , Clear cartons , Liner cartons etc
? Packaging applications like Wads, Envelopes , Soap wrappers , Rigid boxes etc
? Books Binding
? Cigarettes Making and Packing
? End of the Line applications for Cartons Flap sealing/Closing (Metallocene /EVA)
? Label Stock mfg.
? Shoes (Footwear) Mfg.
Food Safety – An Adhesive Perspective in Packaging:
As we cater to critical applications like Cigarette making and Food Packaging, lot of care needs to be taken during product design and manufacturing of these adhesives.
The End Users and Convertors main concern while consuming packed food product is to know whether the food is safe. Lot of ingredients go in the making of packs – Film, Ink, Board, Adhesive, varnishes and so on. All these ingredients have a role to play on Food safety.
It has been estimated that Adhesive constitutes less than five percent of the total structure of the final pack. In most of the packs like Glass Bottles there is no contact of adhesive with Food material whereas in most packs like Liner cartons, Mono cartons, Flex packs etc the contact is Indirect.
In order to make Food Packaging safe all the inputs going into the making of Food packaging should comply to the use of ingredients in making these products. In addition there should be a plan to minimise the migration of chemicals. Migration is the transfer of substances from the Packaging to Food and vice versa.
The Food Contact Regulations which widely govern the design of various ingredients are:
A) US FDA – Code of Federal Regulations, Title 21, Part 170 to 190 (CFR 21, 170 – 190)
• FDA 176.170 (Paper board)
• FDA 175.105 (Adhesives)
B) European Food Contact Legislation
C) FSSAI – Food Safety and Standard Authority of India
The USFDA regulation 175.105 for adhesives specifies the type and controls the use of polymers and chemicals which go in its manufacturing along with its limits of usage. Thus a properly designed adhesive formulation makes the food safe as it does not contain chemicals not allowed by the USFDA guidelines. The major chemicals of concern are Heavy Metals, Bisphenol, Phthalates, Phenolic compounds etc.
Few of Pidilite’s flagship products used for lamination and pasting like Fevicol HP 002, Pidicyl FF 103, Fevicol CPW, Fevicol 2000 L, Fevicol 3000 L and many more are developed based on USFDA 175.105 guidelines. These products apart from being FDA Compliant also run on high speed machines while Conversion and are compatible with various Boards and Films.
European Union Legislation through its various regulation frame work suggest the use of specified ingredients, Good manufacturing practices, Good R&D facilities, Quality Control and Quality Assurance practices.
The European Union main Regulation 1935/2004 covers, by its Annexure, guidelines for Food Contact material like Paper and Board, Adhesives Printing inks, Plastics and so on. The Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) Regulation (EC) 2023/2006 is relevant to all the Food contact Materials (FCM) during manufacturing, processing and distribution of materials. Thus GMP applies to all Converting companies and the suppliers of all their input material.
Pidilite’s manufacturing plants supplying adhesives for Paper Conversions are ISO 9001, ISO 14000 and OHSAS certified. Most of the manufacturing plants are DCS controlled automated plants which prevent manual intervention to make these types of products compliant to various norms.
In compliance to various GMP norms, we have a full fledged in house Quality assurance capability to test various chemicals by advanced and latest equipment/instruments namely
• GC -MS /GC – FID
• EDXRF
• FTIR
• DSC etc
These are apart from regular Quality control equipments which we use to test all products made at all our manufacturing locations. All these infrastructure help us ensure that we make and supply products which comply to stringent norms.
The Plastic material EU 10/2011 regulation’s Compositional requirements speaks of Positive list of chemicals, monomers, colorants, and so on. It also gives insight to the migration limits through the packaging material.
Migration is influenced by factors like:
> Migration is both ways – depends on packaging structure, design and barrier layers
> Adhesive quantity – Use optimum quantity
> Shelf life – The high the shelf life of food the more the chances of migration
> Adhesive formulation – Adhesive should be compliant as per various norms like USFDA and EU
> Storage temperature : Lower the storage temperature low is the risk of migration
> Larger the pack to food ratio , low are the chances of migration
Increasing the barrier layers further reduce the migration levels and make the food Safer.
To sum up Food safety depends on all components which go into making of the Final pack. Adhesive, although a small component is a key for productivity on high speed machines, give gloss, bond and withstand use temperatures. In addition, adhesive should comply with various norms of FDA/ EU and should not give migration above specified limits.
Pidilite Industries with its good infrastructure, has range of products for various applications which are in line with these compliances.
Business Manager, Pidilite.
He has 10 years of experience on Product Development of Polyurethane. He has been worked for 17 years as Technical Services/ Customer support role.
