Food-grade rPET certifications — EFSA, FDA, ASTM, ISO. Buyer’s guide 2026

2026 is a year of regulatory tightening for the food-grade rPET industry. The EFSA PFAS limit cut (January 2026), the ISCC PLUS update to v4.2 (October 2026) and the looming PPWR 2030 obligations all push packaging producers to far stricter expectations from rPET suppliers.

This guide ranks the key certifications from compliance-critical to optional “nice to have”. For an FMCG buyer in Poland and the EU, missing this knowledge today means real financial risk — audits, fines, and in case of a food-contact failure, civil liability.

Critical certifications (must have)

1. EFSA Opinion — European Food Safety Authority

In the EU, this is the basic ticket to market. Every PET recycling process producing food-grade rPET must hold a positive EFSA opinion. The opinion is issued for a specific technology (e.g. “Gneuss SSP”, “Starlinger iV+”, “Ohl RecoSTAR”) at a specific plant.

How to verify:

• The supplier should provide the opinion number (format: EFSA-Q-YYYY-NNNNN) and the date of issue
• Opinions issued before 21 January 2026 must be supplemented with a 28-PFAS migration report after the limit tightening
• EFSA list: efsa.europa.eu/en/applications/food-contact-materials

The EFSA opinion is issued for indefinite duration, but requires review at every material change of the process (e.g. SSP reactor replacement).

2. ISCC PLUS — Integrated Sustainability and Carbon Certification

The de facto traceability standard for rPET in the EU. Certifies the entire supply chain — from collection to finished product. From v4.2 (effective 1 October 2026) it requires proof of physical batch segregation for food-grade.

What a supplier must have:

• Current ISCC PLUS certificate (typically 12-month validity)
• Compliance with the latest standard version (v4.2 from Q4 2026)
• Documented Sustainability Declaration for every delivered batch (with batch ID)

ISCC PLUS is not a food safety certificate — it is traceability. It does not replace EFSA or FDA, but it lets a brand credibly communicate “X% recycled content” in ESG statements.

3. FDA Letter of No Objection (LNO) — for non-EU markets

The US counterpart of an EFSA Opinion. The Food and Drug Administration issues a Letter of No Objection for specific PET recycling processes. Required for producers exporting to the USA, Canada (by agreement), Mexico, or working under American brand contracts. Over 200 LNOs had been issued by 2026; each is publicly available in the FDA Food Contact Notification (FCN) database.

Technical quality standards (critical for procurement)

4. ASTM D7611 — PET terminology

ASTM International standard defining PET terminology and grades. Buyers should require compliance with:

• ASTM D4603 — intrinsic viscosity (IV) measurement methodology. Beverage-bottle range: 0.78–0.84 dl/g.
• ASTM D3418 — melt temperature (Tm). For PET: 245–260 °C.
• ASTM D792 — density. For PET: 1.38–1.40 g/cm³.

Every food-grade rPET batch should arrive with a Certificate of Analysis (CoA) with measurements against the above norms.

5. ISO 22000 — Food Safety Management System

Global food safety management standard, covering food-contact materials. A recycler plant should hold ISO 22000 or its industry derivatives:

• FSSC 22000 — Food Safety System Certification (ISO 22000 + additional)
• BRCGS Packaging Materials — GFSI-recognised UK standard
• IFS PACsecure — international packaging-contact standard

For Polish contracts with European FMCG brands: FSSC 22000 or BRCGS is practically mandatory today.

Additional certifications (nice to have)

6. Operation Clean Sweep (OCS)

Global programme for controlling microplastic emissions from production sites. Not a certification in the ISO sense, but increasingly required in green public procurement and contracts with carbon-neutral corporations.

7. B Corp

Comprehensive environmental-social audit. For rPET plants it is mostly marketing — signalling shared ESG values to a brand.

8. Halal / Kosher

For brands selling into Muslim-majority countries or kosher segments — required to confirm absence of enzymes or processing aids incompatible with those standards.

Supplier verification — five-point checklist

1. Ask for the complete certificate list. A good supplier has 4–6 different certifications. Missing EFSA + ISCC PLUS = automatic red flag.
2. Verify validity and numbers. Every certificate has a number checkable in a public database. EFSA: online database; ISCC: iscc-system.org/certificates; FSSC: fssc22000.com/certificates.
3. Ask for the latest audit report. External audit (SGS, Bureau Veritas, DNV) must be renewed every 12 months. A report older than a year = red flag.
4. Require a Certificate of Analysis for every delivery. CoA with IV, Tm, density, moisture, contamination. Suppliers reluctant to issue CoA — avoid.
5. Plan your own site audit every 2–3 years. Seeing the line, the segregation silos and the QA lab is an investment that pays back at the first compliance issue.

Red flags — suppliers to avoid

• No EFSA opinion number on request
• Expired ISCC PLUS certificate with no recertification plan
• No Certificate of Analysis available
• Migration report only on 4 PFAS (not 28), despite a contract starting after 1 January 2027
• No separate silos for different material classes — everything mixed “ad hoc”
• “In-house laboratory” audit reports instead of independent auditors

Certification costs — for context

• EFSA Opinion application: EUR 150 000–400 000
• ISCC PLUS (first year + system implementation): EUR 30 000–80 000
• FSSC 22000 (certification + annual audit): EUR 12 000–25 000/year
• BRCGS (audit): EUR 8 000–20 000/year
• FDA LNO application: USD 60 000–120 000

For a supplier this cost is built into the price of food-grade rPET — which is why certified material runs 30–40% above “technical grade”. That gap is not a brand premium but the real cost of compliance.

Summary

In 2026 food-grade rPET stopped being an “emerging market” — it is a mature ecosystem with strict standards. A buyer chasing the lowest price while skipping certifications takes on risks (regulatory, reputational, product recall) that far exceed the saving. EFSA + ISCC PLUS + FSSC 22000 is today’s minimum. Suppliers offering less should be treated as short-term solutions, not strategic partners.