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I am considering ordering a few silicone kitchen utensils from China (like this). However, I am concerned about their food safety. The seller assures that the tools are made of "100% Food Grade Silicone" and food safe symbol (fork and wine glass icon) is there - however anyone can print anything on their products... The seller also assures that their products are certified by a number of agencies ("CIQ,EEC,FDA,LFGB,CE / EU,SGS", of which for certain I can recognize only FDA, EU may possibly mean European Union).

Do you have any experiences with this producer or is there any official online resource (e.g. published by FDA or EU) that can be used to confirm food safety of products offered by a given producer?

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    Just from a Chinese website sales page I would be suspicious indeed. Just a few hours ago I came across eco friendly PVC for a product on AliBaba.
    – user34961
    Oct 13, 2017 at 12:24
  • Trying to research the Walfos brand does not find much data. While this may be because of the country of origin and limited business history, I would say that the lack of information could indeed be cause for concern. To your point, anyone can print anything on a product, and faked reviews are relatively simple to pull off. While this does not mean that a new company just has not made a name for itself, it could also be a sign of an unreliable company. If I personally cannot find meaningful data and reviews for a company or product on a broad scale, I am unlikely to purchase it.
    – Incorporeal Logic
    Oct 13, 2017 at 15:51

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"100% something" can mean "nothing else was intentionally added", while the material might still be contaminated, eg by using raw materials (or auxiliary chemicals that are not considered part of the product) that were neither of food grade purity nor processed to ensure they are. It can also be a rounded up value - 99.6% silicone, 0.4% of Satan's earwax. Actually, it HAS to be since 100% silicone does not come in various fancy colours unless a pigment or dye - which is not made of any silicone - is added.

"Black list" systems like recall systems will only list things known unsafe. Iit is very unlikely that everything else that is not on the list has been comprehensively tested and found known safe. Also, OEM manufacturers and raw material suppliers can change without the brand/order number of the product changing.

What can help is researching (unfortunately, tiresome work) whether any reputable local supplier OEMs the exact same item - an (eg) European importer has some interest in not being in the focus of a product recall, so there is a chance they will have commissioned laboratory tests or taken other steps to make such problems unlikely, or their product might have even been the subject of a published safety test (eg in test magazines). This would speak for the quality of the manufacturer.

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If you have to worry about imports from China, you also need to worry about those from Eastern Europe, South Asia, Latin America and South-east Asia.

If you have any misgiving, check with https://www.cpsc.gov/. There you can also check if there was any recall.

Personally, I would take their word for it if its says food-grade otherwise I have too many things to worry about. Unless it does not perform like normal like melting or turning brittle.

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