Safety and Materials

Every pot we make is meant to go in an oven and hold food, so safety isn’t a layer we add at the end. It starts with the clay and the firing, and it finishes with an independent laboratory measuring what, if anything, leaves the finished piece.

Our cookware is made in Romania under the POEM DESIGN name, shaped from natural clay and fired at high temperature. The same pots that reach home kitchens go to retailers, distributors and private-label buyers across Europe, and everything here applies to all of them. One caveat: this covers the clay cookware. Our garden and decorative pieces, the planters, gnomes and figurines, are not food-contact products and aren’t tested or sold for cooking.

Food contact safety

“Food contact” has a specific meaning in the EU, and ceramic cookware sits squarely inside it. Two rules matter. Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004 is the general framework: any material meant to touch food must not transfer its constituents into that food in amounts that could harm health. Council Directive 84/500/EEC narrows this for ceramics, setting hard limits on how much lead and cadmium a piece may release. For cooking ware and larger containers, the category our pots fall under, those limits are 1.5 mg/L for lead and 0.1 mg/L for cadmium.

Meeting them is the whole point of testing, and it’s the part we can show rather than assert.

Tested for lead and cadmium

We sent finished pots to IBA București, the National Institute for Research and Development in Food Bioresources, and asked for heavy-metal migration testing. The lab filled each piece with a 4% acetic acid solution, a mild acid that stands in for acidic food, left it for 24 hours, then measured the lead and cadmium that had leached into the liquid by ICP-MS. That’s the method the directive calls for.

We tested all three of our finishes, because glaze is where lead and cadmium usually come from, and a claim that covered only one finish wouldn’t be worth much. Three separate reports came back, all dated 22 July 2025:

  • Natural, unglazed (report 3050): lead 0.034 mg/L, cadmium below 0.001 mg/L.
  • Semi-glazed (report 3051): lead below 0.001 mg/L, cadmium below 0.001 mg/L.
  • Fully glazed (report 3052): lead 0.065 mg/L, cadmium below 0.001 mg/L.

Put against the limits, the highest lead reading, 0.065 mg/L on the fully glazed pot, is around four percent of the 1.5 mg/L ceiling. Cadmium came back below the detection threshold on all three. These are migration tests on representative samples from a single production lot, not a certificate stamped on every unit, and we won’t describe them as more than that. What they show is real enough: the clay and glazes we use released lead and cadmium well below the EU limits when an independent lab measured them. The full reports are linked at the foot of this page.

Natural clay

The body of every pot is natural clay, nothing exotic. Clay earns its place in the kitchen for two plain reasons: it holds heat and it holds moisture. A clay pot warms slowly and gives that heat back evenly, which suits long, low cooking, a shoulder of pork left to go soft or a loaf of bread. Because the walls trap steam rather than letting it escape, food stays moist without much added fat or liquid. None of this is new. It’s why cooks have used earthenware for roasts and slow dishes for centuries, and our unglazed natural clay pots lean hardest into it.

High-temperature firing

Raw clay isn’t cookware. Firing is what turns it into a hard ceramic that can take oven heat, and we fire at high temperature (around 1,000 °C) to get there. A well-fired body is denser and more stable under heat than a lightly fired one, which is what lets these pots handle repeated trips to a hot oven. Firing doesn’t remove the need to treat clay as clay, though. Ceramic doesn’t flex the way metal does, so it wants gradual heat and no sudden shocks.

Using clay cookware in the oven

Clay cookware is built for the oven, and it rewards a slightly different habit from a metal pan. The one rule that prevents most cracks is gradual heating. Put the pot, with the food already in it, into a cold oven, then turn the oven on so both come up to temperature together. Sliding a cold pot into an oven that’s already hot is the classic way to shock the ceramic and open a crack.

The same logic runs in reverse. Don’t pour cold water into a hot pot, don’t set a hot pot straight onto a cold worktop or a wet surface, and rest it on a wooden board, a folded towel or a trivet when it comes out. Most of our roasters are made for the oven, not for direct heat, so keep them off gas burners, electric hobs and induction unless a specific product says otherwise.

If you want the detail, we’ve written it up across a few guides: how to use a clay pot for the first time, a fuller answer to whether clay pots are safe for oven cooking, and how to avoid thermal shock for the reasoning behind the rules.

Glazed and unglazed finishes

We make both glazed and unglazed pots. The choice affects how you cook and clean more than whether the pot is safe, since all three finishes passed the same tests. An unglazed pot has a porous surface that soaks up a little water when you soak it before cooking. That water turns to steam in the oven and bastes the food from the pot itself, which is the trick behind a tender clay-baked chicken. It also means unglazed clay wants its own routine, usually hot water and a brush rather than soap, since the pores can hold detergent. We cover that in how to clean unglazed cookware.

A glaze seals the surface instead. Glazed pieces, from lidded glazed casseroles and inside-glazed roasters to terracotta serveware, wipe clean more easily and don’t need soaking, which some cooks prefer for everyday use. We recommend hand washing all our clay cookware; glazed pieces will tolerate a dishwasher, but the unglazed ones are porous and shouldn’t go in one at all, and hand washing is always the gentler option even for the glazed pots. Both types are still ceramic, and both want protecting from thermal shock.

Safety documentation for retailers

If you sell cookware rather than cook with it, the same reports matter for a different reason. A retailer or importer putting a ceramic food-contact product on the EU market is expected to show it meets the lead and cadmium limits, and “the supplier says it’s fine” is not documentation. Ours is: three named lab reports, with the method, the sample details and the measured figures for each finish, the kind of thing you can hand to a compliance team or a buyer who asks hard questions.

That’s the practical case for wholesale and private-label partners. You get a European-made product with a paper trail behind the safety claim, not just the claim. Our wholesale page covers ordering, and we can supply the test documentation to trade customers on request.

Summary

The short version: these are natural-clay pots, made in Romania, fired hard enough for oven use, and tested by an independent Romanian lab for the two heavy metals that matter in ceramics. All three finishes came back well under the EU limits. Use them the way you’d use any good clay pot, with gradual heat and no cold shocks, and they’ll cook the way earthenware is supposed to. For trade buyers, the same testing doubles as the documentation you need to put them on a shelf.

References

Independent testing carried out by IBA București (Institutul Național de Cercetare-Dezvoltare pentru Bioresurse Alimentare), Bucharest, Romania. Heavy-metal migration by ICP-MS, in line with Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004 and Council Directive 84/500/EEC.

Frequently asked questions

Are your clay pots safe to cook with?

Our clay cookware was tested for lead and cadmium migration by an independent lab, IBA București, and all three finishes came back well below the EU limits, the highest lead reading being about four percent of the permitted level. That covers the cookware line only, not our garden or decorative pieces, which aren’t made for food.

Which finishes were tested, and did they all pass?

All three: natural (unglazed), semi-glazed and fully glazed, under reports 3050, 3051 and 3052 dated 22 July 2025. Each passed, with lead measured between below 0.001 and 0.065 mg/L against a 1.5 mg/L limit, and cadmium below 0.001 mg/L against a 0.1 mg/L limit.

Can I put a clay pot straight into a hot oven?

Better not to. Clay takes heat well but dislikes sudden change. Put the pot in a cold oven and let both heat up together, which avoids the thermal shock that cracks ceramic. There’s more in how to avoid thermal shock.

Can I use a clay pot on the hob or a gas flame?

Most of our roasters are made for the oven, not direct heat, so keep them off gas, electric and induction hobs unless the product specifically allows it. A flame heats one spot too fast and can crack the pot.

Are the pots dishwasher-safe?

It depends on the finish, and we’d steer you to hand washing either way: we recommend hand washing all our clay cookware, glazed pieces will take a dishwasher, but unglazed ones must not go in one. Unglazed pots in particular should be cleaned with hot water and a brush rather than detergent, since the clay is porous. See how to clean unglazed cookware.

Can you provide test documentation for wholesale or private-label orders?

Yes. Trade customers can request the three lab reports, which list the method, samples and figures for each finish, useful when you need to show a compliance team or your own buyers that the products meet EU lead and cadmium limits. Start on our wholesale page.