REACH is an European Regulation concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and restriction of Chemicals. It first came into force on 1st June 2007 and replaces a number of European Directives and Regulations with a single system. The Aims:

• To provide a high level of protection of human health and the environment from the use of chemicals.
• To make the people who place chemicals on the market responsible for understanding and managing risks associated with their use.
• To allow the free movement of chemicals on the EU market.
• To enhance innovation in and the competitiveness of the EU chemical industry.
• To promote the use of alternative methods for the assessment of the hazardous properties of substances.

A European Chemicals Agency in Helsinki, Finland deals with the day to day management of the REACH requirements:

Registration – chemical producers / importers must submit a registration dossier containing safety data to the chemicals agency for all chemicals produced in quantities above 1 tonne per year.

Evaluation – experts evaluate safety data for higher volume chemicals and other chemicals of concerns.

Authorisation – chemicals of very high concern will be phased out and replaced by safer alternatives, where this is technically and economically viable.

In the context of REACH, Kitchenmaster is considered to be a “Downstream User” as we do not manufacture chemical substances but blend these components into formulated mixtures. In accordance with REACH, Kitchenmaster is obliged to ensure that all our chemical ingredients comply with REACH and to ensure that individual ingredients are approved for use in the intended cleaning application of our products.
Although Brexit has changed the status of some EU regulations in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales), the EU REACH Regulation has been brought into UK law (as UK REACH) and the key principles of the EU REACH Regulation have been retained. Kitchenmaster, based in Northern Ireland, ensures that we comply with both the EU REACH Regulation and UK REACH in relation to our products.

A Safety Data Sheet (SDS) is an important document as it describes the safety hazards associated with a chemical product, the hazardous ingredients, the precautions that should be adopted by the end user to avoid harm, First Aid actions and how the product should be stored safely.

Safety Data Sheets can seem complex, but are laid out in a similar way with 16 sections that allow the reader to find relevant information quickly, whether it be the recommended Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to wear when using the product, the actions to take in the event of accidental contact or how to handle a spillage.

All chemical products are classified and labelled in accordance with a harmonised international system called CLP (Classification, Labelling and Packaging). CLP determines the hazard symbols, warning statements and precautions that appear on both product labels and the SDS and it is important that these are considered before a hazardous product is used in the workplace. The CLP classification takes account of harm to human health as well as environmental and storage considerations.

Safety Data Sheets provide a vital tool when assessing staff safety in the workplace. When hazardous chemicals are used or stored on site, employers are obliged to carry out a risk assessment in accordance with the COSHH (Control of Substances Hazardous to Health) Regulations.

To comply with COSHH, the employer must assess all chemicals on site and consider how these are used by employees. Actions are taken to ensure that staff are trained to handle and use chemicals safely and that measures are in place to minimise the risk of harm caused by exposure to the chemical. In practical terms this often means selecting the most appropriate PPE to suit the task.

It is normally the manufacturer of the chemical product that carries out the CLP classification and generates the content of the Safety Data Sheet, but there is a wider legal responsibility within the Distributor network/Supply Chain to ensure that the SDS for a hazardous product reaches the end user. If an end-user customer needs a SDS to carry out a workplace COSHH assessment or maintain safety records, please contact your supplier in the first instance.

All products manufactured by Kitchenmaster are made by our experienced Production team, in accordance with master formulations and following documented procedures in accordance with standards governed by the Quality Assurance Standard, ISO 9001.

Raw material components are sourced from approved suppliers and all Kitchenmaster products are marked with a unique batch code that allows traceability back to specific manufacturing and quality control records. This means that in the event of a customer complaint we can act quickly to investigate the problem and take corrective actions where required.

In addition to comprehensive records, we maintain product batch samples for up to 2 years after the date of manufacture to help evaluate long term performance and formulation stability.

View our quality statement

The Biocidal Products Regulation (BPR, Regulation (EU) 528/2012) was adopted by all EU Member States in 2012 and came into law in the following year, replacing the Biocidal Products Directive. The BPR Regs attempt to control to the availability and use of biocides within the EU, with the overriding aim to ensure a high level of protection for both humans and the environment.

A biocide is defined in BPR as a (chemical) agent intended to destroy, deter, render harmless, or exert a controlling effect on any harmful organism. This means that the scope of BPR is wide and, in Europe, biocidal products are divided into 22 different product types (PT) that fall into four broad categories: Disinfectants, Preservatives, Pest Control and “other biocidal products”.

BPR requires that all disinfectants and biocidal products be authorised before they can be placed on the market, and that the active substances contained in the product must have been previously approved for the specific biocidal (PT) application. The authorisation process is complex and is further complicated by the retrospective application of BPR to many products that were widely available on the market prior to the Regulations being brought into law. This has meant that some timelines for BPR completion have been extended, although significant progress has been made in restricting and outlawing the use of many of the more harmful biocidal products that were available before BPR.

Although BPR will become harmonised across the EU, individual Member States are still able to apply national legislation to control biocide use, such as the PCS notification system used in Ireland. The PCS and other systems used by Member States will become superseded as BPR takes full effect.

BREXIT: Following the end of the Transition Period on 31 December 2020, Great Britain is no longer part of the EU scheme, however BPR has been copied into GB law and amended to enable it to operate effectively in GB.

The Pesticide Control Service (PCS) of the Department of Agriculture and Food is the competent authority for the implementation of the biocides legislation in Ireland.
This Irish legislation requires that all biocides (using the EU BPD definition) on the market in Ireland must be notified to the PCS using the required notification form. The notification form provides basic information on the nature, composition and intended uses of the biocide. This notification is a transitional measure, which will allow the products concerned to remain on the market pending completion of the EC biocides review programme specified in the BPD.

It is the responsibility of the company that markets a biocide in Ireland to ensure that the product is notified to the PCS in accordance with S.I. No. 625, either by themselves or by another company acting on their behalf.

In 2015 the Classification, Labelling and Packaging (CLP) Regulation came into force, replacing the Dangerous Substances Directive and Dangerous Preparations Directive, with a unified system that was legally binding in all EU Member States and applied to all industry sectors.

For most consumers and end users of chemical products, the most noticeable change was to product labels where orange square hazard symbols were replaced by red bordered diamonds called pictograms.

The CLP Regulation is based on a United Nations system called GHS (Global Harmonised System) and its aim is to ensure a high level of protection to health and the environment by using a common hazard classification system.

CLP places a responsibility on manufacturers, importers and agents within the supply chain to classify, label and pack chemical products appropriately before placing them on the market. CLP provides the criteria used to determine the physical, health, environmental and additional hazards relevant to a chemical mixture and this hazard classification determines what hazard pictograms and statements appear on the product label and safety data sheet.

Although the United Kingdom is no longer part of the EU, the CLP Regulation is retained in GB law and under the authority of the Health & Safety Executive the arrangements mean that Great Britain continues to adopt CLP/GHS independently of the EU.

The carbon reduction commitment is the new cap and trade legislation that will affect around 5000 organisations in the UK.

The Carbon Trust Standard is awarded to organisations that measure, manage and reduce their carbon footprint. Organisations that achieve the Standard are taking real action to reduce their direct impact on climate change. Over 60 organisations have achieved the Carbon Trust Standard.

The Carbon Trust Standard was launched in June 2008. It builds on other international Standards for the measurement of corporate carbon emissions:

• Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Standard from the World Resource Institute (WRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).
• ISO14064-1:2006, which provides a specification (at the organisation level) for quantification and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions and removals.