‘Forever Chemicals’ Fight Heats Up in Kitchens
A fight over nonstick pans has moved to the front burner in Minnesota.
The state last month became the first to ban the sale of cookware containing the so-called “forever chemicals” known as PFAS. The move is part of a wider effort across the country to crack down on the synthetic compounds, some of which have been linked to cancer, liver damage and fertility issues.
The ban has thinned the variety of cookware available in Minnesota stores and surprised some consumers. Sara Bohjanen, whose dishwashing stints had inspired her and her fiancé to put a nonstick pot on their wedding registry, switched to a stainless steel model after learning their first choice could no longer be sold in the state.
“If I have to go back to soaking the eggs off I guess that’s what I have to do,” said Bohjanen, a 26-year-old medical student who lives in Woodbury, Minn.
The Cookware Sustainability Alliance, which represents the makers of brands such as T-fal, Circulon and All-Clad, is suing the state over the ban. It said the most common type of PFAS used in nonstick pots and pans—PTFE, best known by the brand name Teflon—has been deemed safe by the Food and Drug Administration.
Minnesota’s prohibition doesn’t stop with cookware. It covers 11 categories of consumer goods that contain PFAS, including dental floss, carpets and children’s products. Power sports dealers, who have stopped selling kid-size motorcycles and ATVs, have also criticized the law’s broad reach.
Pots, pans and pushback
PFAS chemicals have concerned government officials for years because the compounds can pollute soil and water and potentially sicken people. Minnesota-based 3M and other chemical manufacturers have settled PFAS-related litigation for billions of dollars.
Some cookware companies said Minnesota lawmakers are unfairly targeting their products. Steve Burns, president of the alliance, said pots and pans with a Teflon-like coating last longer and have superior nonstick properties than alternative products, which typically have a ceramic finish.
Burns said the nonstick properties allow people to cook without using oil or butter, and keeps cookware out of the trash. “What we’re trying to say to the rest of the country is don’t follow this,” he said.
Three states—Colorado, Maine and Vermont—have bans similar to Minnesota’s that are due to take effect next year. Rhode Island is set to follow in 2027 and Connecticut the year after that.
More than $4 billion of cookware is sold in the U.S. each year, and pots and pans with Teflon-like coatings account for nearly two-thirds of sales. Burns said the three companies named in the lawsuit—California-based Meyer, French multinational Groupe SEB and Brazil-headquartered Tramontina—sold nearly $22 million of nonstick products annually in Minnesota before the ban.
Store shelves show the aftermath. A Target in Bloomington, Minn., displayed seven cookware brands on a recent afternoon, while a Target just over the Wisconsin state line offered 11. In the aisle of the Wisconsin store, a nonstick frying pan that contained PFAS hung next to a nearly identical ceramic model that touted being PFAS-free.
Minnesota state Sen. Judy Seeberger, an early backer of the ban, said she has “not heard one word” from consumers upset about the unavailability of nonstick pots and pans in the state.
Supporters of Minnesota’s ban said PTFE, a type of PFAS used in nonstick coatings, isn’t as benign as the industry contends. The chemicals can get into drinking water after pots and pans are discarded in a landfill, according to Anna Reade and Katie Pelch, scientists from the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The cookware industry disputes the claim, saying PTFE molecules aren’t water-soluble under normal use.
Reade and Pelch said PTFE can create fumes if a pan overheats, sickening people with a respiratory ailment nicknamed “the Teflon flu.” Chemours, the maker of Teflon, warns on a website that pet birds should be kept out of the kitchen lest they be sickened or killed by the particles, though it says they have “little to no effect on people.”
The cookware alliance has asked a federal judge to stop enforcement of the law, but Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison responded in a court filing that the state was entitled to prohibit the sale of products. He said scientists know relatively little about the potential toxicity of PTFE, and that “the jury, so to speak, is out” about its safety.
For most U.S. consumers searching for nonstick pots and pans, the two main choices are products with PTFE or a ceramic coating. Nordic Ware, which has a factory in the Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park, last year switched to the latter.
On a recent morning, the factory’s production line sent metal woks beneath nozzles that sprayed them with liquid ceramic as they spun. A second station applied silicone oil that combined with the ceramic to form a hard, nonstick surface.
The companies suing Minnesota say they can’t easily make a similar change. They typically roll nonstick chemicals onto metal disks before pressing them into pots and pans. It’s an efficient technique but won’t work with ceramics, which are so hard that metal can’t be shaped after the coating is applied.
“These big companies that are in this suit, they’ve got some huge technological hurdles,” said David Dalquist, Nordic Ware’s chief executive. “They’ve got to reconfigure their factories.”
The cookware companies allege the ban has tilted the state’s market in favor of Nordic Ware. Dalquist said the company won new retail customers in Minnesota after the ban reduced inventory on store shelves, and he expects further sales to follow as consumers grow wary of Teflon-like coatings.
The companies in the lawsuit also make ceramic pots and pans, though they say it is a minor part of their business.
In some cases, their marketing materials contradicted the lawsuit’s claim that products with PTFE are safe. Tramontina’s website had said one of its ceramic-coated fry pans is “made without harmful chemicals like PTFE” and offered “a healthier way to cook.”
The company didn’t respond to requests for comment, but following an inquiry from The Wall Street Journal, that passage disappeared from the pan’s online product description.