This article focuses on food contact safe clear coatings/varnishes that can be used on residential household items like tabletops, serving trays (or boards), highchairs, countertops, and decorative bowls.
For these applications, we won’t find too many clear coatings that are officially FDA tested. But many coatings will meet food-safe requirements.
Most coatings will not leach chemicals once they are fully cured. Water-based and solvent-based coatings do not leach bisphenols (only epoxy coatings leach bisphenols), phthalates (found in caulking but not in paints), or lead (the main ingredient that made some paints not safe for food contact in the past).
Does that mean any clear coating can be used on food contact surfaces? It depends on how you use the item, but I would say no!
I will look at FDA approval, use the FDA’s list of approved ingredients, and use Toy Safe Certifications to determine if a coating is food safe.
Volatile Organic Chemicals (VOCs)
The list of coatings in this article gives priority to brands that are very low or zero-VOC. However, if you have used a solvent-based coating that has fully cured, that can be safe too, it just takes longer to cure, and is not non-toxic for some time.
Real Use Case
Whether a coating is food-safe really depends on how you are using it. We are focusing here on objects like tables and trays, where you might place some foods or have some incidental contact. The items will not be going into a dishwasher, the items are not bowls that you eat liquid food out of, and they are not items that go directly into your mouth. I personally would not use any synthetic coating on a cutting board, as no synthetic coating is suited to actual ingestion on a regular basis.
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There are three main regulations that we are going to use to determine if a coating is food-grade or food-safe.
First, to clarify the terms, food-grade refers to the material, and food-safe refers to the product being safe in the actual conditions that the material is being used in.
The FDA states in 117.40 in Subpart B “Food-contact surfaces must be made of non-toxic materials and designed to withstand the environment of their intended use and the action of food, and, if applicable, cleaning compounds, sanitizing agents, and cleaning procedures.”
Regulations we will consider:
1. FDA Title 21, Section 175.300
Section 175:300 lists cleared ingredient materials for resinous and polymeric coatings. Paints can be tested by this regulation (extraction testing), certified by a third party, or the company can provide a signed letter of guarantee that it meets the requirements. Most paints unfortunately do not have these official documents. For those that don’t, we can use the list of approved ingredients in 175:300 to see if a product would likely fit within this regulation.
Coatings used in the home, for tabletops, high chairs, and other consumer goods are often not officially tested.
(We should note that this is not the only regulation for coating ingredient safety in the US, there can also be national, and state laws like California Prop 65 that apply to ingredients in coatings).
2. FDA Title 21, Section 174
Section 174 lists ingredients considered GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) for their intended use. For example, Carnauba wax, an ingredient in many wax coatings, is GRAS and therefore is considered safe in coatings.
3. Toy Safe Standard EN 71:2019
This is a European standard, but there are a number of certified brands that sell their products in North America as well, so this turned out to be a useful regulation for the coatings and paints.
This tests for the leaching of toxic elements such as aluminum, antimony, arsenic, barium, boron, cadmium, Chromium (III), Chromium (VI), cobalt, copper, lead, manganese, mercury, nickel, selenium, strontium, tin, organic tin, and zinc.
This standard simulates the leaching of metals in the stomach as if the paint were ingested by a child.
There is no equivalent testing in North America, so it’s good we have some brands tested in Europe that are available in North America.
Coating Cure Times
The final thing we want to keep in mind before looking at the best brands to use is how long it takes to cure. The coating should be fully cured before we put it to use on food contact areas.
Water-based zero-VOC coatings generally need one-two weeks to cure to the point of not offgassing chemicals. Be sure to check the time frame based on when you can begin wiping down the coating or when the company says it’s food contact safe. Solvent-based coatings take longer for the solvents to flash off. At least a month is needed for those paints before you should put food on them.
Food Contact Safe Clear Sealants
1. Epoxy Coating
Epoxy coatings are thick and form a very good barrier between the paint and you. Epoxy generally contains bisphenols (like BPA), however. This can still be considered food contact safe by the FDA, though not always by state regulations.
I generally don’t talk about epoxies on this website since they are very strong in odor and VOCs when wet. The two parts need to come together and form a chemical reaction. While it is still curing can be very difficult to tolerate for those sensitive to chemicals. Though once it cures it should be just fine. The cure time is not always what they say, real-life conditions can mean it takes longer.
Epoxies are often used on trays, tabletops, bartops, countertops, bowls, and cups.
The following brands are FDA approved as food-safe:
2. Clear Synthetic Sealer
A clear water-based polyurethane, acrylic, or polyacrylic sealer can be used over a painted wood or other painted surface to form an extra layer of durability and protection.
Most brands of low and zero-VOC polyurethane, acrylic, and polyacrylic are likely food-safe, though most are not tested by the FDA’s standards. They are considered food-safe based on the raw ingredients.
Good brands include:
- Annie Sloan Chalk Paint Lacquer (which is Toy Safe)
- AFM Acriglaze (defacto food safe according to the company based on ingredients)
- AFM EXT (defacto food safe according to the company based on ingredients)
- Fakolith is a European company that makes food-grade varnishes that are tested and certified for direct, indirect, and occasional contact with food, beverages, and drinking water, according to European regulation EU 10/2011, and/or American regulation FDA 21 CFR 175.300. They make various products including clear sealants, acrylic enamel paints, and a food-grade epoxy paint. (But it’s not clear where to buy them).
3. Shellac
While many websites and companies state that shellac is considered GRAS (generally regarded as safe) by the FDA, that does not appear to be accurate. This document by the FDA states that shellac is not GRAS, it’s also not listed in the GRAS database here.
It is however listed as an approved raw ingredient in resinous and polymeric coatings that come into contact with food (FDA CFR title 21 Volume 3 Sec. 175.300 Resinous and Polymeric Coatings) and it is used to coat foods, even organic foods can be coated with approved shellacs. I consider shellac to be very safe for food contact surfaces. If you were going to eat it you would want to look more closely at how it was processed.
Zinsser Shellac, the biggest brand of premixed shellac products are not FDA approved for food contact surfaces.
What you should do (ideally) is to buy the shellac from a reputable seller like Wellermart and mix it with a food-grade alcohol like Everclear.
4. Natural Oil Sealers
Many penetrating oil sealers are food-safe if they are all natural:
- Tung Oil from The Real Milk Paint Company (used with Citrus Solvent only)
- Pure Linseed Oil from Tried and True (with no driers or other additives)
- Pure Hemp Oil
- Pure Walnut Oil with Carnauba Wax
Food Safe Sprayed on Coatings
I don’t know of any spray can coatings that are officially food contact safe. But like other options above, once cured, they could be considered safe based on raw ingredients.
Spray can coatings are also higher in VOCs than brush-on coatings, even the best water-based spray cans use a solvent propellant. For solvent-based sprayed on coatings, most of them were still offgassing at one month’s time. My post on non-toxic spray paints goes over brands that are much safer that could be used on furniture.
Krylon said: “We don’t manufacture a product that is FDA approved [to be food-safe]. An FDA approval is important in terms of whether a product film is safe for incidental ingestion. We do not perform animal testing and cannot test for ingestion. Therefore, we offer nothing that is guaranteed to be food safe if it is ingested or encounters someone’s mouth. Having said that, many of our customers apply our products on countertops. Just make sure to set or prepare food on a cutting board/trivet/food-safe surface.”
None of Rustoleum’s sprayed on coatings are food safe, they said in an email.
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