Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to describe a pilot study characterizing the domestic usage of food packaging (amount and type) at the household level. Design/methodology/approach -Collection and detailed characterization is carried out, from a sample of Portuguese consumers, of packages used at home during a seven-day period. Findings -The daily intake of domestically consumed, packaged food ranged from 5 to 50 g/kgbw. The average intake value for children below 12 years old was 26 g/kgbw. Considering all packaging materials, package usage ranged from 0.1dm2/day.kgbw to 0.6dm2/day.kgbw. Packaging usage factors and food-type distribution factors for each packaging material were estimated.Research limitations/implications -The period of packaging collection and the size of the sample limit the degree of generalized conclusions that can be drawn. Practical implications -The data collected are the base for the development of a framework and could make an important contribution to the assessment of consumer exposure to substances migrating from packages into food, in this case of the Portuguese consumer. Originality/value -The results achieved are analysed in relation to the current assumptions made for the safety assessment of materials in the relevant European legislation. Furthermore, the results achieved can be used in a probabilistic approach to these assessments as the distributions of values, and not only the per capita values, are known.

This study aimed to permit further refinements in exposure assessments for migrants from food-contact materials by contributing to the characterization, at the household level, of the food packaging usage (amount and type) of Portuguese urban families. Packages from domestic use were collected from a sample of 105 consumers from 34 households over a 30 day period. Collected packages (more than 6 000 items) were characterized in the laboratory and data were used to estimate: (i) global packaging usage and food intake; (ii) the consumption factors (CF) that describe the fraction of the daily diet expected to contact specific packaging materials and (iii) the food-type factors (FTF) that reflect the fraction of all food contacting each material that is different in nature according to 6 major types: aqueous, acidic, alcoholic, milky, fatty and dry. The daily intake of packaged food and beverages consumed at home ranged from 5 to 50 g/kg bw. Considering all materials, total package usage ranged from 0.1 to 0.6 dm 2 /day.kg bw. The ratio between package surface area in contact and the quantity of food was determined for all packaging items collected and an average value of 25 dm 2 /kg food was recorded. Data were gathered and presented in a manner compatible with current probabilistic approaches to exposure assessment. In this way, relevant