Materialer og sikkerhed
Materials and food safety
Last updated 13 August 2026
Everything you drink out of is, in law, a food contact material. That brings a specific set of obligations, and this page sets out how each of them is met — including the parts that constrain what we are allowed to sell you.
1. The framework: Regulation (EU) No 1935/2004
Every drinking vessel sold here is a food contact article. Under the framework regulation that means it must not transfer its constituents into a drink in quantities that could endanger health or change the drink’s composition, taste or smell; it must be traceable; and it must be covered by a written Declaration of Compliance issued by the manufacturer.
We hold a Declaration of Compliance for every cup in the catalogue, referenced on the product page by its document number. Ask us for a copy of the one for your cup and we will send it.
This is enforced in the code, not by an editor
A cup whose Declaration of Compliance reference or glaze description is missing is removed from the catalogue by the software that builds these pages. It does not appear as unavailable or behind a warning — it is not on the site, cannot be added to a basket, and the order endpoint rejects it a second time if a request names it directly.
2. Lead and cadmium: Council Directive 84/500/EEC
Ceramic is tested for how much lead and cadmium migrates out of the glaze into an acidic liquid. The limit depends on the shape of the article, not on what it is called:
| Category | Lead | Cadmium |
|---|---|---|
| Not fillable, or fillable to ≤ 25 mm | 0.8 mg/dm² | 0.07 mg/dm² |
| Fillable to > 25 mm — everything we sell | 4.0 mg/L | 0.3 mg/L |
| Cooking ware, containers over 3 litres | 1.5 mg/L | 0.1 mg/L |
Every cup and bowl here is deeper than 25 mm, so the middle row is the one that applies to all of it. We do not sell flat plates, and we do not sell cookware.
Handmade ceramics are where this matters most. Lead-bearing glazes, low-fired coloured glazes and metallic lustres are the highest-risk decorations for migration, which is why we use lead-free glazes throughout and why the two lustre-decorated items are the most tightly specified things in the range.
3. The glazes we use
- Lead-free stoneware glaze, food contact
- Lead-free matte stoneware glaze, food contact
- Lead-free celadon glaze, food contact
- Lead-free glaze with platinum lustre rim
- Lead-free ash glaze, food contact
- Unglazed exterior, glazed interior, food contact
These are the only glaze descriptions permitted on this site. A cup finished in anything else needs new migration test data and a new Declaration of Compliance before it can be listed at all. For completeness, the permitted list in the source is: Lead-free stoneware glaze, food contact; Lead-free matte stoneware glaze, food contact; Lead-free celadon glaze, food contact; Lead-free ash glaze, food contact; Unglazed exterior, glazed interior, food contact; Lead-free glaze with platinum lustre rim; Not a food contact article.
4. Metallic decoration and the microwave
This cup carries a metallic lustre decoration. It must never go in a microwave: metallic decoration arcs and will damage both the cup and the oven.
The rule is applied by the code rather than by whoever wrote the product description: any item flagged as carrying a metallic decoration is reported as unsuitable for a microwave wherever microwave suitability is shown, and there is no setting that overrides it. Items affected:
- Small Cup with Saucer 90 ml — Lead-free glaze with platinum lustre rim
- Tea Pair Set 250 ml × 2 — Lead-free glaze with platinum lustre rim
5. Dishwasher, and why some cups are hand wash
Dishwasher suitability is stated per item on its product page, with the height and rim diameter beside it so you can check it against your own basket before buying. Items we ask you to wash by hand are those with an unglazed exterior, a matte or ash glaze that dulls under detergent, a metallic rim, or a double wall where water can be trapped between the layers.
6. Thermal shock
Ceramic cracks from sudden temperature change
Avoid sudden temperature changes. Do not pour boiling water into a cold cup straight from the fridge, and do not move a hot cup into cold water — ceramic can crack from thermal shock.
We make no claim that any cup here resists thermal shock, and a crack caused by one is damage rather than a manufacturing fault. Warm a cup with hot tap water first if it has been somewhere cold.
7. Handmade variation
Each cup is finished by hand, so dimensions vary by up to ±5% and no two glazes are identical. Variation in colour, glaze pooling and small surface pinholes are characteristics of the process, not faults.
Every measurement we publish is taken from the current production batch and is subject to that ±5%. If a cup you receive is outside it, that is a fault and the two-year right to complain covers it.
8. Honesty about how things are made
Danish marketing law is strict about the word “handmade” and about country of origin, so we split the two apart on every product page:
- Forming is stated as it is — thrown by hand on a wheel, cast in a mould and then hand-finished, or machine-pressed and hand-glazed. The last of those is not handmade and we do not call it that.
- Designed in and made in are listed as two separate fields. Our cups are designed in Denmark and produced by workshops in Poland and Portugal, and both facts are printed on every product page. We do not describe the range with any single country-of-manufacture claim.
9. Items that are not food contact articles
Three things in the shop never touch a drink. They are labelled as not being food contact articles on their own pages, and they carry no Declaration of Compliance because none is required:
Where a set contains both — the Morning Set, for instance — the food contact status of each component is listed separately in the box contents.
10. What we do not claim
- We make no health claim of any kind. A cup does not improve water, aid digestion, alter flavour chemistry or do anything at all except hold a drink.
- We make no insulation claim. See how we measure cooling for what our cooling figures do and do not mean.
- We make no unbreakability or scratch-resistance claim. Ceramic breaks when dropped and glaze marks when scoured.
- We make no environmental claim we cannot evidence — no “sustainable”, no “eco-friendly”, because we have no data that would justify either word.
A list of phrasing that is not permitted anywhere on this site is held in the source code and checked automatically before every deployment; a build containing any of it fails and never reaches you.
Questions
Write to support@unikakceramics.shop or call +45 23 76 94 18. Requests for a Declaration of Compliance are answered within one working day.