The battle for permanent chemicals in cookware has seen celebrity chefs, major cookware manufacturers, and state legislatures join the fray. Now, a new lawsuit has been filed regarding the advertising claims.
Cookware company Caraway alleges that “Big Cookware” is using the lawsuit to try to “silence” the company, which once stood out for making permanently chemical-free pans. Caraway recently launched a marketing campaign in response to a lawsuit filed in February by two major pan manufacturers, who say Caraway is damaging their reputation by marketing its products as free of “toxic” chemicals—though it never named either company.
The lawsuit, filed by Groupe SEB USA and Meyer in the Southern District of New York, says Caraway’s marketing of permanent chemicals, the term used for per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS), is harmful to the industry as a whole. Caraway’s marketing materials, the two companies say in the suit, are not based on scientific fact and “caused substantial and ongoing harm to consumers, plaintiffs, and other cookware and bakeware companies in the market.”
In response to questions from WIRED, Carmine Zarlenga, the Mayer Brown attorney representing Groupe SEB USA and Meyer in the case, sent a press release. “Claiming that you are a small company is not a defense against false advertising—all companies, large and small, have the same rights and responsibilities under federal and state false advertising laws,” Zarlenga said in the release.
The case is the latest attack on anti-PFAS advocacy by two of the biggest companies in the global cookware industry. In 2024, as more than a dozen state legislatures measured bans on consumer products containing PFAS, Groupe SEB, the parent company of Groupe SEB USA, and Meyer founded the Cookware Sustainability Alliance, an industry advocacy group. That group has strongly resisted the ban, including signing letters and testifying at statehouses.
Last fall, faced with a bill in the California legislature to ban consumer products containing PFAS, celebrity chefs, including Rachael Ray, Marcus Samuelsson, and David Chang sent letters to the legislature opposing the bill. (Ray and Chang have cooking lines related to Meyer, while Samuelsson works as a “chef partner” for All-Clad, which is owned by Groupe SEB. WIRED sought comment from All Clad, Ray, Samuelsson, and Chang. All four did not respond.) The bill eventually passed the legislature but was blocked by Governor Gavin News.
“The Cookware Sustainability Alliance is focused on state-level advocacy to protect perfectly safe cookware from the ban on PFAS products,” the group’s president, Steve Burns, told WIRED in an email. “We are not involved in any crime at this time.”
Last year, the Cookware Sustainability Alliance challenged the claims made by Caraway through the National Advertising Division (NAD), an independent nonprofit organization often associated with the Better Business Bureau National Programs that regulates the ad industry itself. The coalition challenged some of the claims in Caraway’s advertising about PFAS.
The NAD ruled that Caraway can continue to advertise its products as “non-toxic” and “PFAS-free,” but it must avoid certain claims in its advertising, including that some unlabeled cookware “can release toxins into your food and home during normal, manufacturer-recommended use.”
Caraway, the February case, continued to use that message despite the NAD decision. The company says many of the advertising examples highlighted in the lawsuit simply state that its products are non-toxic and that they fully comply with NAD recommendations. But the lawsuit also says Caraway “has not taken down many of the relevant ads.” In a memo in support of the motion to dismiss, Caraway said the NAD did not provide “any factual support on the part of consumer fraud.”
