pasta packed in direct contact with recycled paperboard (23.4
and 3.6 mg kg1 of MOSH and MOAH up to n-C25, respectively)
and in an egg pasta packed in a paperboard tray made of recycled
fibres covered with a thin layer of virgin paper and wrapped with a
plastic film (14.6 and 2.0 mg kg1 of MOSH and MOAH up to n-C25,
respectively), while the lowest concentrations were found in semolina
pasta packed in plastic film: 0.1–2.8 mg kg1 of saturated
hydrocarbons up to n-C25, mainly due to migration of polyolefin
oligomeric saturated hydrocarbons (POSH) from the plastic packaging.
The egg pasta packed in virgin paperboard boxes or in trays
made of virgin paperboard and wrapped in a plastic film had intermediate
contamination levels (MOSH up to n-C25 comprised
between 1.0 and 3.0 mg kg1). As previously reported by Barp
et al. (2015), due to its lower fat content, semolina pasta is less
subject to hydrocarbons migration and hence had maximum
MOSH amounts around 4.0 mg kg1, even when packed in direct
contact with recycled paperboard. The GC profile of some of the
egg and semolina pasta revealed the presence of further contamination
sources giving ‘‘humps” centred on higher molecular
weights, generally not accompanied by the presence of MOAH.
Contamination in the range from n-C25 to C35 varied from 0.1 to
2.7 mg kg1.