State of the safety assessment and current use of nanomaterials in food and food production

•Many applications of nanomaterials in the agri/feed/food sector are in development.•Organic nanomaterials like nanocarriers are the most applied nanomaterials.•Only few analytical approaches detect nanomaterials in food and biological samples.•Toxicological assessment of nanomaterials in food relies mainly on in vivo data.•No combination of in vitro approaches can truly replace chronic oral in vivo studies.

Nanomaterials are developed for and applied in food, food additives, supplements and food contact materials. In an inventory of internet databases 140 products in the food and food-related sectors were identified that claim to contain nanomaterials. A great diversity of nanomaterials is applied, ranging from inorganic metal and metal oxides to organic nanomaterials that carry bioactive ingredients. Here we present an overview of nanomaterial applications that are currently available, discuss state of the art analytical chemical characterization and toxicological assessment methods, as well as categorization methods to support the safety evaluation of the application of nanomaterials throughout food production.