Food Contact Compliance for Branded Drinkware
By The Velocity Wear Team
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Branded bottles, tumblers and cups are food contact materials in UK and EU law. Before they can be sold or given away, a Declaration of Compliance has to exist for them, and the legal responsibility for that sits with the business placing them on the market rather than the factory overseas. For most brands ordering drinkware, that business is them.
This is the part of a drinkware order that almost never comes up until something goes wrong. A promotional supplier quotes a price per unit, the artwork gets approved, the bottles arrive, and nobody has asked the one question that carries legal weight: can you produce the paperwork showing these are safe to drink from?
It is worth ten minutes now rather than a recall later. This explains what the rules actually require, who they land on, and the four things to ask a supplier for before you place the order.
Why drinkware is regulated differently from apparel
A hoodie has labelling obligations. A bottle has those plus a whole separate regime, because anything that touches what someone eats or drinks is a food contact material.
The framework is Regulation (EC) 1935/2004, retained in UK law and applied in England through the Materials and Articles in Contact with Food (England) Regulations 2012, with equivalent regulations in Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland follows the EU position under the Windsor Framework. The principle in all of them is the same and it is short: a food contact material must not transfer its constituents into food in quantities that could endanger health, change the composition of the food, or spoil its taste or smell.
For plastics specifically there is a more detailed instrument, Regulation (EU) 10/2011, which sets out which substances may be used and the migration limits that apply. It is the reason a plastic bottle needs more documentation than a steel one.
None of this is optional, and none of it is satisfied by a supplier saying the product is food grade. That phrase has no legal definition.
Who is actually responsible
This is the part buyers get wrong most often, and it is the reason this article exists.
Responsibility attaches to the business that places the goods on the market. If you import branded bottles from an overseas factory and hand them out at an event or sell them in your shop, you placed them on the market. The factory did not. Their compliance obligations are to their own regulator, in their own jurisdiction, and they do not transfer to you as a defence.
That means three practical things:
- You need the documentation in your own records, not merely a supplier who claims to have it.
- You need it before the goods are placed on the market, not after a question is asked.
- Giving something away counts. A free branded bottle at a conference is still placed on the market.
If you buy through a UK distributor who imports the goods themselves, the position can differ. Ask, in writing, who the importer of record is. If the answer is you, act accordingly.
What a Declaration of Compliance is
A Declaration of Compliance, usually shortened to DoC, is a written statement from the manufacturer or supplier that the material meets the applicable food contact regulations. For materials covered by a specific measure, such as plastics under Regulation (EU) 10/2011, it is a requirement rather than a courtesy.
A DoC worth having identifies the product precisely enough to be matched to what you received. A one-line PDF saying "our products are food safe" is not a Declaration of Compliance, and a supplier offering one as though it were is telling you something useful about how they operate.
| Element | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Identity of the issuer | A DoC from a trading company that never made anything is weaker than one from the manufacturer. |
| Identity of the material or article | It has to be specific enough that you can tell it describes your product and not a different line. |
| The regulation it declares against | Regulation (EC) 1935/2004 as the framework, plus the specific measure where one applies. |
| Date of the declaration | A DoC is a point-in-time statement. One from several years ago and a different formulation is not evidence about your order. |
| Conditions of use | Temperature and contact time the material was assessed for. A tumbler rated for cold drinks is not automatically fine for hot ones. |
| Supporting test data reference | The DoC is the statement; the testing is the evidence behind it. Ask whether the underlying reports can be made available. |
What migration testing actually measures
Migration is the movement of substances out of the container and into the drink. Testing measures it in two ways.
Overall migration measures the total quantity of non-volatile substances transferred into a food simulant under defined conditions. Specific migration measures individual substances of concern against their own individual limits. Both are carried out against simulants chosen to represent the kind of food or drink the article is intended for, at a temperature and duration representing its intended use.
The numeric limits live in the regulation and are revised, so check the current figures in Regulation (EU) 10/2011 rather than in anyone’s blog post, including this one. What matters for a buyer is the shape of the thing: the test conditions have to match how the product will genuinely be used, or the result does not tell you what you need to know.
That is the question worth asking. A bottle tested only for cold water, sold as a coffee tumbler, has been tested for the wrong thing.
The "BPA free" problem
Almost every plastic bottle you will be offered is described as BPA free. It is worth understanding what that does and does not tell you.
BPA free is a marketing phrase, not a certification. It states the absence of one specific substance. It says nothing about the dozens of other substances that could migrate from a plastic, nothing about whether the article has been assessed against the regulation as a whole, and nothing about the conditions it was tested under.
A product can be entirely BPA free and entirely undocumented. Treat the phrase as the beginning of the conversation rather than the end of it, and ask for the Declaration of Compliance regardless.
Steel, glass and plastic are not equivalent
The documentation burden differs by material, which is worth knowing before you choose.
| Material | What to establish | Documentation |
|---|---|---|
| Stainless steel | The grade. 304 (also written 18/8) is the common food contact grade; lower grades corrode and affect taste. | Framework regulation plus material grade evidence. No EU-wide specific measure for metals, so national guidance applies. |
| Plastic (Tritan, PP) | Which polymer, and the conditions it was assessed for. | Declaration of Compliance under Regulation (EU) 10/2011 is a requirement. |
| Glass | Generally inert; the concern is decoration and any printed area near the rim. | Framework regulation. Check any applied decoration separately. |
| Coatings and linings | Anything between the drink and the substrate is itself a food contact material. | Needs covering by the declaration, not assumed to be included. |
The last row is the one that catches people. A powder coated or internally lined bottle has a layer that the drink may contact, and it needs to be inside the scope of whatever documentation you are given.
Where branding intersects with compliance
Decoration is not usually a food contact issue, because it sits on the outside. There are two exceptions worth checking.
- Printing that runs close to or over the rim, where a drinker’s mouth reaches it.
- Any interior decoration or interior coating, which is a food contact material in its own right.
If your artwork wraps the full height of the bottle, raise it. Moving a design down by a few millimetres at proof stage costs nothing; discovering the issue after 2,000 units are printed costs the run.
What to ask before you order
Four questions, in this order. They take one email and they change what you are buying.
- 1Can you provide a Declaration of Compliance for this exact product, and may I see it before I order?
- 2What are the declared conditions of use, in temperature and contact time?
- 3For steel, what grade is the body? For plastic, which polymer?
- 4Does the declaration cover any internal coating or lining as well as the substrate?
A supplier who can answer all four quickly has done this before. A supplier who cannot produce a DoC at all has told you what you needed to know, and the right response is to order elsewhere rather than to order and hope. Our own pricing and volume tiers start at 50 pieces, and the documentation question is one we expect to be asked.
Keep what you are sent. The documentation is only useful if you can find it when someone asks, which is typically months later and in a hurry.
Key takeaways
- Branded drinkware is a food contact material and carries legal obligations that apparel does not.
- Responsibility sits with whoever places the goods on the market, which is usually the brand importing them, not the factory.
- Giving drinkware away counts as placing it on the market.
- "Food grade" and "BPA free" have no legal weight on their own. A Declaration of Compliance does.
- The declared conditions of use must match how the product will really be used, especially for hot drinks.
- Internal coatings and linings need to be inside the scope of the documentation, not assumed.
If you are working out which product to order in the first place, our guide to choosing wholesale bottles covers the specification side, and the sampling process covers seeing one before you commit. The range itself is on the wholesale bottles page, and ordering a sample is the fastest way to see the documentation a supplier can actually produce.
