Sourcing aluminium cookware from China

Duty

Read from the UK Trade Tariff on 25 September 2026, cast and other aluminium table, kitchen and household articles, and articles made from aluminium foil up to 0.2 mm thick, such as foil containers, carried 6% duty on goods from China, with no anti-dumping measure. For moka pots, see our guide to sourcing aluminium stovetop espresso makers. For pressure cookers, see our guide to sourcing aluminium pressure cookers.

Stainless steel and cast iron cookware sit under different headings with their own rates, so a mixed range needs a commodity code per material; the homeware guide covers the wider category.

Food contact is the rule

A pan, a baking tray or a foil container is a food contact material, so it must not transfer its constituents to food in quantities that could endanger health. For coated cookware the coating is the question: ask for the coating supplier, its declaration of compliance and migration test reports for the finished product, not only for the raw coating. The food contact materials guide sets out what the documentation should contain. For roasting pans, see sourcing aluminium catering roasting pans.

Keep the documents with each batch, because a change of coating supplier is a change of product, and ask for notice of any change in writing.

Thickness, base and handle

Base thickness is what separates a pan that lasts from one that warps. Specify the wall and base thickness, the alloy, and for induction hobs the bonded steel plate, then measure them on production pieces at inspection and test a sample on an induction hob. For stockpots, see our aluminium stockpot sourcing guide. For blanks used to form cookware, see our aluminium cookware circles sourcing guide.

Handles are the other failure: rivets that loosen and handles that get hot. Ask for a handle pull test and a heat test, and check the oven-safe temperature claimed on the box against the handle material. For camping cookware, see our aluminium camping mess tin sourcing guide.

Worked duty example

An invented example rather than a quote: 5,000 non-stick aluminium frying pans, commodity code 7615 10 80 90, bought for £30,000 free on board, with £2,500 of freight and insurance, so £32,500 is the value customs works from. Duty at the 6% rate for aluminium cookware is £1,950. VAT at 20% applies to £34,450, so £6,890. A VAT-registered buyer usually recovers the VAT, so the border adds £1,950 to the landed cost. See calculating UK import duty and VAT for the method.

Inspection checklist

Performance to BS EN 12983-1: the standard for domestic stove-top cookware covers handle strength and fixing, stability and the declared capacity. Ask for the test report for the pan you are buying, and on production samples measure base and wall thickness at several points and base flatness after repeated heat-and-quench cycles.

Coating: test adhesion by cross-cut to ISO 2409 on samples from each batch, measure coating thickness to ISO 2808 against the approved sample, and ask for the abrasion test result on the finished pan, not only the coating supplier's data sheet.

Food contact and induction: ask for migration results showing aluminium release from uncoated surfaces within the specific release limit in the Council of Europe technical guide on metals and alloys, check that induction models heat on an induction hob and that a magnet holds to the bonded plate, and pull-test handle rivets.

What goes wrong

Aluminium cookware fails on the base, the coating and the handle. Thin or badly formed bases warp after a few heating cycles, bonded induction plates separate, non-stick coatings blister or flake when the surface was poorly prepared, and marketing claims about PFOA or PFAS are made without evidence, even though PFOA is restricted under the persistent organic pollutants rules. Handle rivets loosen and bakelite handles crack near the flame.

Heat and quench samples repeatedly and measure base flatness, check induction plate bonding and performance on an induction hob, test coating adhesion by cross-hatch and abrasion, ask for migration test reports for the coating and the aluminium, back any PFOA-free or PFAS-free claim with test results, and pull-test and torque-test handles.

Coating quality

Non-stick coatings are sold on the number of layers and on abrasion tests, so ask for the test method and result for the coated pan, and check coating thickness and adhesion on samples from the batch.

Cambridge China Bridge sources own-brand aluminium cookware, bakeware and foil containers, with food contact evidence and the physical tests settled before production. See how our sourcing service works. For cake tins, see sourcing aluminium cake tins. For colanders, see sourcing aluminium colanders. For UK-to-China trade, see exporting cookware to China. For pudding basins, see our aluminium pudding basin sourcing guide.

Related guides: Sourcing vacuum flasks and insulated tumblers.