The United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU) planned Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement (SPS Agreement), which is expected to be implemented by mid-2027, is likely to impact UK petitions to clear new food-contact substances before the implementation date.
As background, EU food-contact laws remained applicable in Great Britain (GB) after Brexit; however, amendments made to harmonized EU food-contact legislation after December 31, 2020, such as new clearances obtained under the Plastics Regulation, did not automatically apply in the UK (with the exception of Northern Ireland, which continues to apply the EU food contact legislation pursuant to the Northern Ireland Protocol to the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement). Since January 1, 2021, petitions to clear a new food-contact substance in GB have had to be submitted to the UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA). (For more background information, see the 2021 Packaginglaw.com article, UK Announces Procedure for Authorization of New FCMs.)
On May 19, 2025, when the UK government and the EU first announced the decision to pursue a new SPS Agreement to ease trade relations, food-contact materials were not specifically addressed. Similarly, the UK-EU Summit Common Understanding Policy Paper (updated December 22, 2025) did not indicate that food-contact materials would be encompassed by the Agreement. However, a March 9 release, UK-EU SPS Agreement – Legislation in scope, published by the UK Department for Environmental, Food & Rural Affairs, includes food-contact materials as one of the sectors now covered by the SPS Agreement.
Once the Agreement is in place, new EU authorizations for food-contact substances would extend to the whole of the UK, and separate petitions would no longer need to be filed with UK’s FSA. In other words, food-contact substances that are cleared for use at the EU level may be marketed in GB once the Agreement is in place; separate GB authorizations for food-contact substances would no longer apply.
As to pending petitions already submitted to the UK authorities, the FSA explained, “A substantial number of applications in the GB market authorisation Service are unlikely to reach the point of ministerial decision before the agreement is in place.” (See the FSA webpage, Regulated products application guidance.) As such, companies interested in using new food-contact substances in the UK may wish to focus their efforts on obtaining authorization in the EU, which will allow the products to be used in all of the UK once the Agreement is finalized.
