International Certifications & Test Reports
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Yes, routinely. A display lid contains a CR2032 lithium button cell, which makes the shipment UN3091 dangerous goods — and that is decided at the port of loading, not at your end, so the documents have to be right before the container moves. Three travel with every order and they work as a set: the UN 38.3 test report (all seven tests passed, lithium content 0.062 g), the sea transport classification under IMDG Code 2024 confirming the cell falls within Special Provision 188 (so it is not subject to the other IMDG provisions, packages up to 30 kg), and the MSDS. All three are downloadable above. A forwarder who accepts two of the three is storing up a problem for you. One caveat: these cover sea freight. Air is a separate regime under IATA — tell us at enquiry if the order might fly.

No, and they should not be. The cell is manufactured by our battery supplier, so the UN 38.3 report, the transport classification and the MSDS are issued in the battery manufacturer’s name by an accredited lab — in this case Shanghai Institute of Chemical Industry Testing (CNAS L0748, CMA 230014349552). That is standard across the industry and your forwarder expects it. What we do is hold the current set, check it has not expired, and send it with the shipping documents. If a supplier hands you a UN 38.3 report in their own name for a cell they did not make, ask who actually performed the test — the report number is traceable to the issuing lab.

Yes — and it is the step that catches first-time importers most often, because it is not a test report and no supplier certificate covers it. FDA Prior Notice must be filed online before the shipment arrives, and it applies to food-contact articles including sport bottles. The product code goes on the entry: VEOE for plastic, VGNM for glass. Your customs broker normally files it, but the responsibility is the importer’s, not ours. We supply the material and test documentation that supports the entry; tell us at order stage if your broker needs anything in a particular format.

MERCOSUR (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay) runs a positive list system, unlike the US or Mexico — a substance has to be on the approved list, not merely safe. For plastics, GMC Resolution 19/21 sets an overall migration limit of 10 mg/dm², specific limits for metal salts, and no detectable primary aromatic amines from printed, coated or adhesive surfaces — which concerns decorated drinkware directly, since it covers the print rather than the bottle. GMC Resolution 34/25 (December 2025) adds the same treatment for silicones, including the seals in a flask lid. National transposition deadline for both is 16 June 2026; Brazil has already transposed via ANVISA. If you are shipping decorated bottles into Brazil, raise the PAA requirement with us at artwork stage rather than after production.

Four, and they are close together: 16 June 2026 — MERCOSUR national transposition of GMC Res. 19/21 and 34/25. 30 June 2026 — Canada’s Prohibition of Certain Toxic Substances Regulations, 2025 (SOR/2025-270) comes into force, covering PFOS, PFOA and others, with a five-year record-keeping obligation. 20 July 2026 — last date non-compliant repeat-use articles can be placed on the EU market under the BPA ban. 1 August 2026 — Malaysia’s new lead and cadmium migration limits for ceramic items. Add Singapore’s Food (Amendment) Regulations, already in force since 30 January 2026. If your order lands in one of these markets after its date, the specification has to be right before production, not after.

Our plastic components are BPA-free by formulation — polypropylene, Tritan copolyester and food-grade silicone, none of which use bisphenol A as a raw material — so Regulation (EU) 2024/3190 does not force a change to our materials. What it does change is the paperwork: regulated materials now need a Declaration of Compliance stating BPA was not used in manufacture, and the ban reaches beyond plastics into coatings, inks, adhesives and rubber. Two dates are worth having in your calendar: non-compliant repeat-use articles could only be placed on the market until 20 July 2026, and stock already on the market may remain on sale until 20 January 2029. If a supplier is quoting you from a specification written before 2025, that is worth checking before you commit.

Almost certainly not. The tethered-cap rule sits in Article 6 of the Single-Use Plastics Directive (EU) 2019/904 and applies to single-use plastic beverage containers up to 3 litres — the disposable water and soft-drink bottles you buy filled. Compliance is demonstrated against harmonised standard EN 17665. Reusable drinkware is outside its scope: a stainless vacuum flask, a Tritan sports bottle or a glass tumbler does not need a tethered lid to enter the EU. We mention it because buyers are sometimes told otherwise by an agent who has applied a packaging rule to a durable product. If your customer insists, ask which article of 2019/904 they are relying on — the question usually settles it.

Regulation (EU) 2023/988, the General Product Safety Regulation, applies to consumer products including drinkware. It surprises importers because it is not a test certificate — it is an obligation you carry: a documented risk assessment, a technical file, batch traceability, and a responsible person established in the EU who can be contacted by authorities. What we supply is the evidence that goes into that file: material declarations, third-party test reports, and batch traceability from our production records. What we cannot be is your EU responsible person — that has to be an economic operator inside the EU, usually you or your importer. Tell us at enquiry if your file needs anything specific and we will make sure it goes with the shipment rather than after it.

No, and the reason is worth knowing before you promise it to your customer. CE marking covers electrical equipment, toys, machinery, PPE and medical devices — a drinking vessel falls under none of those directives, so there is no CE certificate to issue. The same applies to UKCA, which is the post-Brexit equivalent with the same scope. What an EU or UK importer actually needs is food-contact evidence: EC 1935/2004 and EU 10/2011, both of which we hold on file and can send today. This comes up often enough that it is worth saying plainly: if another supplier offers you a CE certificate for a water bottle, that document is either for a different product or it is meaningless — and either way it will not help you at customs. Send us the certificate list your customer gave you and we will mark up which items apply to drinkware and which belong to another category.

Yes, if the product is designed or marketed primarily for children 12 and under. A CPC is a Children’s Product Certificate, and the important thing to understand is that it is a product certificate, not a factory certificate — it must be issued against your exact SKU, based on third-party CPSIA lab testing for lead content, lead in paint, phthalates and small parts. No supplier can hand you a pre-existing CPC for a bottle you have not made yet. We arrange the testing and the certificate per order; budget 7–15 working days for it and tell us at enquiry if the end user is a child, because it also changes which lid and which decoration method we recommend.

No — and this is worth getting right, because it is the question we see answered wrongly most often. First, since Brexit the UK mark is UKCA, not CE. Second, and more importantly, drinkware generally does not fall under a CE or UKCA directive at all — those marks cover categories like electrical equipment, toys and PPE. A vacuum flask is a food-contact article, so what UK importers actually need is food-contact test evidence under retained EU legislation, not a conformity mark. If a supplier offers you a CE certificate for a water bottle, that tells you something about how well they know the regulations. We supply the food-contact reports; we do not issue CE marks for drinkware.

We arrange both per order rather than holding a generic copy, and the reason is technical: EU 10/2011 tests specific migration from the exact plastic and the exact colourant used on your run. A report for a clear PP lid says nothing about a pigmented one. REACH SVHC screening is the same — it is against the materials actually used. What we hold on file is EC 1935/2004, the framework regulation covering all food-contact materials. For the specific migration work, send us the model and the colours and we will quote the testing alongside the goods.

Three reasons, and only the third is dishonesty. First, lab numbers come from a full, sealed, preheated container at room temperature — a half-filled flask opened twice loses several hours against the same flask filled to the rim. Second, the vacuum can be weak without being absent: a body with a marginal draw tests fine on day one and fails at two months, which is why we test vacuum integrity on 100% of bodies at the semi-finished stage, before assembly and coating, when a bad one can still be scrapped rather than repaired. Third, some suppliers simply quote the best number they have ever seen. We publish 6–12 hours hot for a full, sealed flask and will send the measurement protocol for your model on request. Any supplier printing “24 hours” on the box is quoting a figure your end user will not reproduce — and that becomes your returns problem, not theirs. A buyer-facing summary of the bisphenol rules sits on BPA-free water bottles.

Three checks, in increasing order of certainty. A magnet tells you little on its own — 304 stainless is largely non-magnetic, so a weak response is normal and proves nothing either way. Weight is a better signal: stainless is roughly three times the density of aluminium, so a stainless body feels substantially heavier than an aluminium one of the same size. The reliable answer is a material test report naming the grade — ask for the mill certificate or an XRF composition report on the finished body, which is what we supply on request. This matters commercially as well as technically: aluminium bodies are cheaper and are sometimes sold as “metal” without naming the metal.

We inspect 8% of every batch rather than a fixed sample per shipment, and our target is under 0.5% defects at the outgoing check. On what counts as a defect: leaks and missing parts are never acceptable and are scrapped, not repaired. Print faults are judged against your approved physical sample, which is why we insist the signed-off sample is the reference rather than the artwork file. If a defect gets through, the remedy depends on scale: isolated pieces are replaced in the next shipment at our cost, and a systemic fault is re-produced. What we will not do is argue that a fault you can see is within tolerance. Ask any supplier to show you a rejected piece from their own line — every factory that actually produces has them, and one that says otherwise is either not inspecting or not telling you.