As of June 30, 2025, paper food packaging in the US is no longer being sold with PFAS grease-proofing agents. The compliance date set in the FDA's January 2025 Federal Register notice closed out a five-year voluntary phase-out announced by industry in 2020, completed in 2024, and made formally enforceable in 2025. The agency says this eliminated the primary source of authorized food contact PFAS exposure in the US market.
That is real progress. It is also a different question from the cookware on your stove. The 2024-2025 FDA actions were about paper food packaging — fast-food wrappers, microwave popcorn bags, take-out paperboard. Non-stick cookware is regulated through a separate FDA pathway and was not part of this phase-out.
What the FDA actually did
The timeline is short and worth getting right:
- 2020. FDA announces a voluntary commitment from manufacturers of grease-proofing PFAS to stop selling those substances for food contact use in the US over the following years.
- February 28, 2024. FDA announces the voluntary phase-out is complete — manufacturers have stopped selling those grease-proofing PFAS for food contact in the US.
- January 6, 2025. FDA publishes a Federal Register notice declaring authorization for 35 food contact notifications (FCNs) related to PFAS grease-proofing coatings is no longer effective. The agency cites manufacturer abandonment as the basis.
- June 30, 2025. Compliance date for any paper packaging produced before January 6, 2025 to clear the supply chain.
The substances at issue were applied to paper and paperboard to repel grease and water. The FDA's phase-out page lists the affected formats: fast-food wrappers, microwave popcorn bags, take-out paperboard containers, pet food bags, and similar packaging. Migration from those papers into greasy food was the exposure pathway the rule addressed.
Food packaging vs cookware — different chemistry, different rule
This distinction is the part most consumer headlines blur, so it is worth drawing carefully.
Food packaging PFAS were grease-proofing agents — coatings applied to paper to repel oil and water. They migrated into food on direct grease contact. The most prominent examples were perfluorinated short-chain replacements for the original long-chain compounds, used because grease and steam from hot food could pull them out of the paper. These are the substances the 2024-2025 FDA actions addressed.
Cookware PFAS are PTFE-based non-stick coatings. PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) is a fluoropolymer — a long-chain plastic with carbon-fluorine bonds. It is in the broader PFAS family by chemistry, but it is not the same compound as the grease-proofing agents that came off of fast-food wrappers. The exposure route is also different: PTFE coatings can release particles when scratched or overheated above roughly 500°F, not via grease migration.
The Federal Register notice in January 2025 covered 35 specific FCNs for paper grease-proofing coatings. It did not touch FDA authorizations for PTFE non-stick cookware, ceramic non-stick coatings, or any other cookware coating chemistry. Those sit under different regulatory authorizations.
Where cookware regulation actually sits
PTFE-based non-stick cookware is authorized under the FDA's food contact substance program, a separate regulatory pathway from the grease-proofing FCNs that were just abandoned. PTFE coatings remain legal for food contact use as of this writing.
The cleanup that did happen in cookware was on the manufacturing side, not on the coating itself. PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) was historically used as a processing aid in the manufacture of PTFE — it was the chemical that drew most of the public attention through the 2000s litigation around DuPont's Parkersburg plant. Under the EPA's 2010/2015 PFOA Stewardship Program, eight major chemistry companies — including DuPont, 3M/Dyneon, Daikin, Solvay, Asahi, Arkema, Clariant, and BASF — voluntarily committed to eliminate PFOA from emissions and products. That target was met by 2015. Every PTFE pan made in the US since then is PFOA-free.
PTFE itself was never banned. Modern PTFE manufacturing typically uses GenX (HFPO-DA) or similar replacements as the processing aid, which are themselves PFAS in the broader chemical-family sense. So a current "PFOA-free" Teflon pan is a true statement that does not tell you whether the coating contains PTFE — and most of them do.
What the major brands did before regulation
Most of the brands marketed as "non-toxic cookware" took a position on PTFE before any regulator forced the issue. The materials disclosures are public on each brand's site:
- Caraway publishes third-party test summaries confirming its ceramic coating is made without PFAS, PFOA, or PTFE, with screening for over 200 PFAS compounds and 20+ heavy metals.
- Our Place's Always Pan 2.0 uses a proprietary ceramic non-stick made without PTFE, PFOA, lead, or cadmium.
- GreenPan Valencia Pro uses a Thermolon ceramic coating that the brand discloses as free of PFAS, PTFE, PFOA, lead, cadmium, mercury, and 247 EU REACH Substances of Very High Concern.
- Heritage Steel Titanium Series is uncoated stainless — a 316Ti titanium-stabilized cooking surface in five-ply construction. Nothing to disclose because there is no coating chemistry.
These positions did not change because of the 2024-2025 FDA actions. They were already in place. What the food packaging phase-out did do is shift the "PFAS in food contact" conversation, which raises the visibility of the cookware question whether or not the regulation itself touched it.
The honest read
The food packaging phase-out is real progress on a real exposure pathway. Per the FDA, it eliminated the primary source of exposure to PFAS from authorized food contact uses. That is worth more than the news cycle gave it.
It also does not retroactively bless or condemn any specific cookware product. PTFE-based non-stick remains FDA-authorized. Ceramic non-stick (Caraway, GreenPan, Our Place) was already PFAS-free before the phase-out. Stainless, cast iron, carbon steel, and enameled cast iron have no coating chemistry to disclose. None of those facts changed on June 30, 2025.
If you want PFAS-free cookware specifically, the test is the materials disclosure on the box and the brand website, not the FDA food packaging news. The shortest version: look for the phrase "PFAS-free" or "no PTFE" — not "PFOA-free," which has been industry-standard since 2015 and tells you nothing about PTFE. The cornerstone guide for the actual brand picks across price tiers lives at Best PFAS-Free Cookware, and the chemistry walkthrough is in What is PFAS in Cookware?.
Editorial neutrality
This article reports the regulatory record as filed by the FDA. It does not characterize the health implications of PFAS exposure beyond what the FDA itself has stated about authorized food contact uses, and it does not take a position on whether the broader PFAS regulatory framework moves fast enough or slow enough. The framing is operational: what the FDA did, what it did not do, and how to read the difference when shopping for cookware.
Frequently asked questions
(See structured FAQ at the bottom of this page for full answers.)
