United Kingdom & Europe
This is the UK and EU edition. It carries the regulation briefing and the guides, which apply wherever you live. What it does not yet carry is a rated product list, and we would rather say that plainly than copy the American one across.
Europe has the most active PFAS regulation anywhere, and almost none of it has landed yet.
In force now: the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation applies PFAS limits to food-contact packaging from 12 August 2026 — 25 ppb for any individual PFAS, 250 ppb summed, and 50 ppm total fluorine, explicitly including polymeric PFAS. That last threshold is the one worth knowing about, because it is the first rule anywhere that counts fluoropolymers toward a limit. It covers packaging, not reusable cookware.
Also in force: the EU ban on bisphenol A in food contact materials, with the main transition deadline passed on 20 July 2026.
Proposed, not decided: the EU-wide PFAS restriction under REACH. ECHA’s risk committee has backed a restriction and its socio-economic committee favoured a general prohibition with use-specific exemptions. Consultation closed in May 2026, a final opinion is due at the end of 2026, and any restriction would begin biting from 2029. Cookware is not named in the exemption list — its fate is genuinely undecided rather than settled either way.
The UK is running its own slower review through the HSE rather than following REACH automatically.
One thing the UK has actually done: in July 2024 the Food Standards Agency advised businesses to stop selling bamboo-melamine composite tableware and consumers to stop using it. That one is worth reading — it is still on sale elsewhere.
We rate products on what they are made from — which means reading material declarations, lab certificates, the fine print on a “free of” claim. Doing that properly means reading the documents for the brands actually sold here, at the prices actually charged here. We have done that for the United States and for Australia. We have not done it for the UK and the EU, so there is nothing here pretending we have.
The American ratings are still worth reading for the reasoning even though the buying advice will not transfer. Several of the brands are sold in both places. Prices, retailers and the applicable law are not.
Tell us which brands to start with and we will start with those.
Every claim linked to the study, statute or manufacturer document behind it — including two widely repeated findings that got weaker when we checked them.
The class definition, what happens when a pan gets hot, and which claims survive contact with it.
A PTFE flake is both at once, by definition. No study has ever measured both coming off the same pan.
Genuinely PTFE-free. Also not really ceramic, and the recipe is a trade secret.
It is not a certification. No agency issues it. The two real standards are LFGB and FDA 21 CFR 177.2600.
The UK Food Standards Agency told businesses to stop selling it in July 2024. It is still on sale.
The EU banned BPA in food contact materials outright. “BPA free” now says almost nothing.
The measurement behind the EU’s 50 ppm packaging limit — and why it catches what targeted tests miss.
The “spoonful of plastic” study now has duplicated images and a formal rebuttal.
Bare stainless and cast iron have no coating to decompose and no proprietary recipe to withhold. Whatever the law ends up saying about fluoropolymers, it will not be about these.
The evidence that actually holds up is about heat plus plastic — reheating in a plastic tub, not storing a cold sandwich in one. Glass removes that question for about the price of one plastic set.
“PFOA-free” has been true of essentially everything since 2015. “Food grade silicone” is not a certification anybody issues. “BPA free” on steel was never in question.
We will email once, when there is an actual rated list for the UK and Europe, plus any rule change that affects what you are allowed to buy. Nothing else.