The European Reference Laboratory organised a third workshop in Ispra, Italy on 10 June 2014 which was attended by a strong delegation from Cerame-Unie. At the meeting was discussed the ongoing laboratory tests on the migration of different metals from ceramic tableware. These results will guide the European Commission when updating the current Directive on the migration of lead and cadmium for ceramic food contact materials. The new legislation, most likely a Regulation, will be proposed in 2015.

At the workshop, results were presented based on different testing methodologies. The meeting concluded that the current testing method (based on 4% acetic acid, for 24 hours at room temperature) could remain. As already proposed last year, the legal limits (still to be defined) would only have to be achieved after the third migration test in order to take into account the decreasing migration at repeated exposure. Further work will focus on possible pre-conditioning of the ware to reduce the overall testing time.