"PFOA-free" is not "PFAS-free"

Last reviewed July 2026.

Three letters of difference, and almost the entire cookware-marketing playbook lives inside it.

The one-paragraph chemistry

PFAS is the family: per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, thousands of fluorinated compounds, the ones called "forever chemicals". PTFE — polytetrafluoroethylene, the classic nonstick coating you know as Teflon — is a member of that family. PFOA is a different member: a processing aid that was used to manufacture PTFE coatings, linked to health harms, and phased out of US production under the EPA's 2010/15 PFOA Stewardship Program — completed around 2015 (EPA program page).

Why "PFOA-free" tells you nothing

Because PFOA left mainstream cookware production a decade ago, essentially every pan sold new in the US today is PFOA-free — the PTFE ones included. Printing it on the box is like labelling bottled water "asbestos-free": true, and empty. A PTFE pan marked "PFOA-free" is still a pan coated in a PFAS. If what you wanted to know is "does this pan have forever chemicals on it", the claim that answers it is PTFE-free / PFAS-free, not PFOA-free.

The gap has a price tag: $2.5M

HexClad marketed its hybrid pans as "non-toxic" and "PFAS-free" while the nonstick layer was PTFE. A California class action followed, and HexClad settled for $2.5M and agreed to stop using "PFAS-free" on PTFE-coated products (settlements are not admissions of wrongdoing). We walk through the court record here.

And sometimes even "PFOA-free" fails the lab

Consumer Reports tested cookware for 96 PFAS compounds in 2022. In a Swiss Diamond pan sold with a PFOA-free claim, CR detected 16 of the 96 — including PFOA itself, averaging about 4 ppb in the coating (Consumer Reports, Oct 2022). The same screen found zero of the 96 PFAS in two ceramic-coated pans (Our Place's Always Pan and the as-seen-on-TV Red Copper). The lesson isn't "ceramic good, PTFE bad" — it's that the label is a claim, and only a published test is proof.

How to read a nonstick box in 10 seconds

• "PFOA-free" only → assume PTFE. True of the claim, silent about the family.
• "PTFE-free" / "PFAS-free" → a real claim — now ask who published the test that backs it. Our table tracks exactly that, brand by brand.
• Bare metal (cast iron, carbon steel, stainless) → no coating, no claim needed. The material is the proof.

Check your brand's claim against its published proof →

We do not test cookware — we index published third-party results and public records, with attribution, and make no health claims. This page describes labelling claims, not the safety of any product.