If you run a deli, a hot counter, a coffee program, or anything that leaves the store in a wrap, a cup, or a clamshell, there is a body of state law you are probably not tracking: bans on PFAS — “forever chemicals” — in food packaging.
Most coverage of it is written for manufacturers. That is a mistake, because the prohibitions are not written the same way in every state. In some, the sentence stops at the manufacturer. In others, it names the retailer. That one drafting difference decides whether a box of non-compliant clamshells in your stockroom is your supplier’s problem or yours.
And there is a second route into the store that almost nobody covers, because it is not about packaging at all.
Here is what the statutes actually say, current as of 1 October 2026.
PFAS reaches a store through two doors
Keep these separate in your head, because the laws do.
Door one: the packaging you put food into. Wraps, bags, sleeves, cups, clamshells, fry cartons, pizza boxes. This is the one written about, and it bites hardest on a store with a deli or hot counter.
Door two: the products you sell off the shelf. Cleaning products, cosmetics, cookware, dental floss. A separate body of state law, on a separate timetable, and in at least one state it is already in force.
A store with a deli walks through both doors. A store with no food service still walks through the second one. Most owners have only ever been told about the first.
Door one: the two kinds of packaging law
Every one of these statutes bans “intentionally added” PFAS in food packaging. What differs is the list of people the ban applies to.
Where the store is named. Washington’s Department of Ecology states the scope in one line: “Food packaging manufacturers, distributors, and retailers may not manufacture, sell, or distribute” the restricted categories. Retailers, expressly.
Minnesota is broader still. Under Minn. Stat. § 325F.075: “No person shall manufacture or knowingly sell, offer for sale, distribute for sale, distribute, or offer for use in Minnesota a food package that contains intentionally added PFAS.”
Two words there are worth your attention. “No person” takes in the store. “Knowingly” is the qualifier that makes supplier documentation matter — it is the difference between a compliance problem and a defensible position. A store with a file of dated supplier certificates is in a materially different place from one without, and that is true before anyone argues about what was in the wrap.
Where the store is not named. Maine’s rule runs: “a manufacturer, supplier, or distributor may not offer for sale or for promotional purposes in the State food packaging intended for direct food contact comprised, in substantial part, of paper, paperboard, or other materials originally derived from plant fibers which are intended for short-term storage or to hold freshly prepared food, to which PFAS have been intentionally introduced in any amount greater than an incidental presence”. Manufacturer, supplier, distributor. Not retailer.
New Mexico is the one to diarise rather than act on today. The Environment Department’s page on the PFAS Protection Act says only this: “Starting January 1, 2027, products such as cookware, food packaging, dental floss, juvenile products, and firefighting foam are banned.” It does not say on that page who the ban binds, and we are not going to guess — if you sell in New Mexico, that is the question to put to NMED before the date.
So a store in Olympia and a store in Portland, Maine face the same product rule and completely different personal exposure.
What counts as “food packaging”
This is not an abstract category. Washington’s program names the items, and they are the things on a c-store’s back shelf. From Ecology, prohibited from February 1, 2023: “Wraps. Plates. Food boats. Pizza boxes.”
And from May 1, 2024: “Bags and sleeves. Bowls. Flat serviceware, including items like plates and trays. Open-top containers, including items like French fry cartons and food cups. Closed containers, including items like clamshells.”
Read that second list again. Bags and sleeves is your sandwich wrap. Open-top containers is your fry carton and your coffee cup. Closed containers is your clamshell. If you sell prepared food at all, you buy from that list every month. Anyone running a counter — see our guides to running a successful deli and opening a coffee shop — is buying from it weekly.
Maine’s rule covers the same ground, describing packaging “comprised, in substantial part, of paper, paperboard, or other materials originally derived from plant fibers which are intended for short-term storage or to hold freshly prepared food” — the grease-resistant paper goods, in other words, which is exactly where PFAS was used and why.
That last point is worth holding onto. PFAS was not in these products by accident or as a contaminant. It was put there to do a job: to stop grease soaking through paper. Which means the products most likely to be affected are precisely the ones that hold the greasiest food you sell.
The packaging dates, and which way they run
| State | Who the prohibition names | In force |
|---|---|---|
| Washington | Manufacturers, distributors and retailers | Wraps, plates, food boats, pizza boxes from Feb 1, 2023; bags, sleeves, bowls, flat serviceware, open-top and closed containers from May 1, 2024 |
| Minnesota | “No person” — includes stores, qualified by “knowingly” | In force |
| Maine | Manufacturer, supplier, distributor | May 25, 2026 |
| New Mexico | Not stated on the Environment Department’s own page — ask NMED | January 1, 2027 |
One honest limit on this table: these are four states we were able to verify word-for-word against the state’s own published rule. Several others have food-packaging PFAS bans at various stages, and the wording of who is bound differs in each. Do not read the absence of your state here as the absence of a rule — read it as a reason to check your own state’s environmental agency.
Door two: Connecticut, where the rule is already on your shelf
Connecticut is the state that makes the point about the second door, and its first stage is already in force.
Connecticut’s PFAS law does not cover food packaging. Its covered categories, published by the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, are consumer goods: apparel, carpets or rugs, cleaning products, cookware, cosmetic products, dental floss, fabric treatments, juvenile products, menstruation products, textile furnishings, ski wax and upholstered furniture.
Look down that list as a shopkeeper rather than as a lawyer. Cleaning products. Cosmetics. Dental floss. Cookware. Those are general-merchandise lines in a great many convenience stores.
Stage one is labelling, and it started on 1 July 2026. Per DEEP: “Beginning July 1, 2026, the law allows the manufacturing, selling, offering or distributing for sale of apparel, carpets or rugs, cleaning products, cookware, cosmetic products, dental floss, fabric treatments, juvenile products, menstruation products, textile furnishings, ski wax, or upholstered furniture if they contain intentionally added PFAS only if the manufacturer labels the products.”
So since July, a covered product containing intentionally added PFAS may be sold in Connecticut only if it is labelled. DEEP has approved specific wording for that label, including “Contains PFAS”, “Made with PFAS”, “Made with intentionally added PFAS” and “Contains PFAS in packaging components”.
The practical consequence is one you can act on without a lawyer: if you trade in Connecticut, those labels should already be on your shelf. Seeing them is not a problem — it is the law working. Not seeing them on a category you would expect is a question for your supplier.
Stage two is a ban, and it binds you. Per the same page: “On and after January 1, 2028, no person shall manufacture, sell, offer for sale or distribute for sale in this state any of the following products if the product contains intentionally added PFAS: apparel; turnout gear; carpets or rugs; cleaning products; cookware; cosmetic products; dental floss; fabric treatments; juvenile products; menstruation products; textile furnishings; ski wax; upholstered furniture; or outdoor apparel for severe wet conditions.”
“No person” again. From January 2028, a Connecticut store offering a covered product with intentionally added PFAS is inside that sentence — and the labelled products that are lawful today become unlawful to sell on that date. A label is a stage-one permission, not a permanent exemption.
And there is a documentation hook. DEEP states: “Upon DEEP’s written request, a product’s manufacturer or supplier must give DEEP a certificate of compliance stating that a product complies with the provisions of the law.” The obligation sits with the manufacturer or supplier, which is exactly why the document you want in your own file is the one from them.
The practical position for a store
The exposure you can actually control is documentation. Washington’s program requires manufacturers to hold certificates of compliance; Connecticut’s lets DEEP demand one from a manufacturer or supplier. That document is the thing to ask your distributor for, by product, in writing. In a “knowingly” state like Minnesota, a file of supplier certificates is the difference between a store that took reasonable steps and one that did not.
The supplier is the control point, not the shelf. You cannot look at a wrap and tell whether PFAS was intentionally added. There is no test you can run at the counter and no marking you can rely on — outside Connecticut, where from July 2026 a label is required on covered goods. The only workable control is buying from suppliers who will put compliance in writing.
Old stock is the live risk. These bans are written around selling, distributing and offering for use — not around when you bought it. A pallet of pre-ban clamshells bought cheaply in 2023 does not become compliant by sitting in your stockroom, and a labelled Connecticut product bought in 2027 does not stay sellable into 2028.
“PFAS-free” on a box is a marketing claim. The statutes turn on intentionally added PFAS, and in some states on thresholds measured in the lab. Ask for the certificate, not the adjective.
What to do this month
- List your food-contact packaging SKUs — wraps, bags, sleeves, cups, lids, bowls, trays, clamshells, fry cartons, pizza boxes, food boats.
- List your covered shelf goods too if you trade in Connecticut — cleaning products, cosmetics, cookware, dental floss and the rest of the category list.
- Send one email per supplier, not per item. Ask, for every line you buy from them: does it contain intentionally added PFAS, do you hold a certificate of compliance, and can you send it. One email to eight suppliers beats eighty emails about individual items.
- File what comes back, with dates. That file is your position, and its value is the date on it as much as the content.
- Diarise the dates that apply to you — Maine’s May 2026, New Mexico’s January 2027, Connecticut’s January 2028 — and put the supplier conversation six months ahead of each.
- Check your own state’s agency page rather than assuming your state matches a neighbour’s.
- Use up or return pre-ban stock rather than holding it, and stop buying deep on affected lines as a date approaches.
The email worth sending
Most owners never start because they do not know what to ask. It is three sentences.
We buy the following items from you for use in our store: [list].
For each one, please confirm whether it contains intentionally added
PFAS, and whether you hold a certificate of compliance for it.
If you do, please send a copy for our records.
That is it. The answer, or the absence of one, tells you what you need to know — and either way you now have a dated record of having asked, which is the thing that matters in a state whose statute turns on acting knowingly.
Where the POS fits
This is a purchasing problem, not a checkout problem, and no point-of-sale system can tell you what a wrap is made of.
What it can do is produce steps one and two. The NRS POS includes inventory tracking and downloadable sales reports, which is a faster way to pull an accurate list of the packaging and shelf items you actually buy than working from memory or from last month’s invoices. The supplier correspondence after that is manual.
Frequently asked questions
Does this apply to packaging I buy, or only to packaging I sell?
Both, potentially. The prohibitions are written around manufacturing, selling, distributing and offering for use. In Washington and Minnesota a store using non-compliant packaging to serve prepared food is inside the wording; in Maine the sentence stops before the retailer.
I don’t have a deli. Does any of this reach me?
Possibly, through the second door. Connecticut’s law covers cleaning products, cosmetics, cookware and dental floss rather than food packaging, and from January 1, 2028 it binds “no person” who sells them in the state.
What are the “Contains PFAS” labels I’m seeing in Connecticut?
Stage one of Connecticut’s law. Since July 1, 2026 a covered product with intentionally added PFAS may be sold only if the manufacturer labels it. DEEP has approved the permitted wording.
Does a label mean the product is fine to keep selling?
Only until January 1, 2028. From that date the ban applies to covered products with intentionally added PFAS regardless of labelling.
What does “intentionally added” mean?
That PFAS was put there on purpose to do a job — usually grease resistance. It is distinguished from incidental presence. Maine’s rule draws exactly that line, covering PFAS “intentionally introduced in any amount greater than an incidental presence.”
Is there a federal ban?
These are state laws, and they do not agree with each other on scope, dates or who is bound. That is precisely why the answer depends on where your store is.
My distributor says it’s fine. Is that enough?
Get it in writing, per product. In a state whose statute turns on acting “knowingly,” what you were told and when you were told it is the material fact.
What about packaging that came with a product already?
Manufacturer-packaged goods are the manufacturer’s compliance obligation. The exposure a store can realistically create for itself is in the packaging it buys and puts food into, and in the covered goods it chooses to stock.
Key takeaways
- PFAS reaches a store through two doors — the packaging you fill, and the products you sell. They are different laws on different timetables.
- Whether the store is in scope depends on the state. Washington names retailers. Minnesota says “no person.” Maine stops at the manufacturer, supplier and distributor.
- The covered packaging items are your everyday goods — wraps, bags and sleeves, bowls, flat serviceware, open-top containers, closed containers, pizza boxes, food boats.
- Washington’s dates have already passed — February 1, 2023 and May 1, 2024.
- Maine’s rule took effect May 25, 2026. New Mexico bans food packaging from January 1, 2027, though its Environment Department page does not say who the ban binds.
- Connecticut is already live on the second door. Since July 1, 2026 covered goods with intentionally added PFAS must be labelled, and from January 1, 2028 DEEP states no person shall sell them at all.
- Documentation is the control. Ask suppliers for certificates of compliance, per item, in writing, and keep the file with its dates.
- Pre-ban stock does not become compliant by ageing. The prohibition is on selling and offering for use.
- Check your own state. Five states are verified here; the wording differs everywhere, and absence from this list is not absence of a rule.
