Cookware startup Caraway got sued by its competitors. It then used the lawsuit for marketing

In February, two of the biggest players in the cookware space — Groupe SEB and Meyer — filed a lawsuit against Caraway, accusing the company of false and misleading advertising claims. Both Groupe SEB and Meyer are conglomerates that own and operate multiple brands that home cooks would likely recognize in their kitchens. Some of Groupe SEB’s most notable brands include T-fall and All-Clad. Meanwhile, Meyer’s brands include KitchenAid and Rachel Ray cookware. 

At the heart of the issue is how Caraway talks about PFAS in its marketing, a subject consumers and state regulators are taking a growing interest in. 

As the EPA explains it, “PFAS are widely used, long-lasting chemicals, components of which break down very slowly over time.” It’s a catch-all term used to refer to a certain class of man-made chemicals used in a wide variety of industrial products, many of which have been around for decades and, because of how long-lasting they are, don’t break down easily. 

As more research has been done on PFAS — and just how prevalent they now are in people’s bloodstreams and in the environment — consumers are more closely scrutinizing how exposure to PFAS could impact their health. Companies like Caraway see that as a business opportunity. Nathan said he got the idea for Caraway after experiencing what he called “Teflon flu” — he accidentally left a non-stick cooking pan on the burner for too long and said he started to get sick. 

“A call to Poison Control brought shocking clarity,” Caraway’s website reads. “He was experiencing Teflon flu, a reaction to the forever chemicals in non-stick cookware.” 

Caraway launched in 2019 with a ceramic cookware set, though it has since expanded into other product lines like food storage containers and bakeware. Last week, it launched a coffee maker that doesn’t rely on plastic. 

On its website, Caraway explains that its cookware “features a non-toxic ceramic coating that is completely free of PTFE, PFOA, PFAS, lead, and cadmium.” 

To explain what makes its products different, Caraway has gone to great lengths to contrast its products with those currently on the market — and that’s what caught the attention of Groupe SEB and Meyer. 

In their lawsuit, Groupe SEB and Meyer accused Caraway of a “long history of false and deceptive advertising” that has “caused immense and continuing harm to consumers, to plaintiffs, and to other cookware and bakeware companies on the market.”

Part of what Groupe SEB and Meyer take issue with is Caraway’s use of the term “toxic cookware” in much of its marketing — implying that other cookware on the market is bad for you.

“This lawsuit is about one thing: truthful advertising,” Carmine Zarlenga, a lawyer representing Groupe SEB and Meyer, said in a statement to Modern Retail. “Caraway launched an aggressive advertising campaign making unsubstantiated claims about an entire category of products that federal regulators, including the FDA and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, have consistently found to be safe. When the National Advertising Division of the Better Business Bureau independently reviewed Caraway’s claims and recommended they be discontinued, Caraway agreed but failed to fully comply. Our lawsuit was filed only because Caraway refuses to play by the rules and insists on misleading consumers.” 

Since the lawsuit was filed, Caraway has opted to make it the central focus of its marketing strategy this year, rather than staying quiet about the matter. On its homepage, Caraway now has a tab called “Join the Fight,” which shoppers can click on to read about the issue. It even includes links to the original lawsuit and Caraway’s motion to dismiss. 

Shortly after the lawsuit was filed, Caraway released a petition for its customers to sign, urging people to “Tell Big Cookware: We Don’t Want Forever Chemicals in our Homes.” The company put up billboards near a Groupe SEB office in New Jersey that read, “Groupe SEB, go pick on someone your own size.” On his LinkedIn, Nathan temporarily updated his title to read “sued by big cookware.” 

Lawyers didn’t ignore that. On July 27, Caraway got a cease and desist from Groupe SEB and Meyer, demanding that Caraway “immediately cease and desist from its unauthorized, infringing use of Meyer’s and SEB’s registered trademarks and brand logos in Caraway’s advertising, marketing, and promotional materials.” Caraway responded by releasing videos with a disclaimer that it wasn’t affiliated with “big cookware.” 

 “We felt like it was really our duty to shine a light on what was happening behind the scenes, and also reinforce what Caraway’s mission is,” Nathan said of his decision to keep talking publicly about the lawsuit. 

“We have no interest in silencing anyone,” Zarlenga said in a statement. “Caraway is free to market its products however it wishes, as long as its claims are truthful and not misleading. Consumers deserve to make purchasing decisions based on facts, not fear. That is all we are seeking. As to trademark issues, we were pleased to see that Caraway has in essence conceded infringement as we contended through the recent use of a disclaimer to clarify trademark affiliations.”

The debate around how to talk about PFAS 

Much of the lawsuit centers on how Caraway talks about PFAS, especially in an age when platforms like Facebook let marketers test dozens of copy variations at the same time. 

The term PFAS does not refer to one single chemical. According to the EPA’s website, “There are thousands of PFAS chemicals, and they are found in many different consumer, commercial, and industrial products. This makes it challenging to study and assess the potential human health and environmental risks.” 

Groupe SEB and Meyer’s lawsuit focuses on a few key points. First, there’s the way Caraway talks about PTFE, a polymer found in much of Groupe SEB and Meyer’s cookware. 

“Using PTFE-coated cookware and bakeware, under normal conditions, has never been proven to pose any health risks or have any measurable risk of contaminating consumers’ food, homes, or bodies,” the lawsuit states. The two companies accuse Caraway of preying on “consumer fears based on problems associated with some PFAS chemicals to deceive targeted consumers into believing they must purchase products that do not contain any chemical, even if it is completely safe, simply because it happens to be a type of PFAS.”

Other allegations stem from how Caraway has responded to the National Advertising Division, an industry-led, self-regulatory body that is part of the Better Business Bureau. The NAD investigates what claims can and should be made in advertising, often before any regulatory guidance is issued. 

Last year, the NAD investigated certain advertising claims made by Caraway at the urging of the Cookware Sustainability Alliance, a non-profit organization that counts Groupe SEB and Meyer as members and is “dedicated to providing science-based information about the safety of cookware products.” 

The NAD recommended that Caraway stop talking about the idea of Teflon Flu “in a context that would suggest that competitor cookware is toxic or is likely to cause Teflon Flu.” The NAD also found that “Caraway has a reasonable basis to claim its cookware is free of PFAS and non-toxic but did not provide sufficient evidence to support comparative claims that competitor cookware is unsafe or less safe.”

“While Caraway has today ceased some of the ads referenced in the NAD complaint, it certainly has not stopped its campaign of misinformation,” the lawsuit from Groupe SEB and Meyer alleges. 

The lawsuit includes examples of ads that Groupe SEB and Meyer say parrot false and misleading claims insinuating that non-stick cookware and bakeware from other companies are dangerous. The lawsuit includes screenshots of Caraway ads that include lines like “5 things in your kitchen you didn’t know were toxic,” and “When it comes to keeping you and your family safe from forever chemicals, you can trust Caraway. It’s free from heavy metals, PFAS, PTFE and every other harmful acronym.”

Caraway sees it differently. In its motion to dismiss the lawsuit, Caraway noted that both Groupe SEB and Meyer also sell ceramic cookware that it has promoted in ads as being “toxin-free” and “made without PFAS, PFOA and PTFE.”

In emails to Modern Retail, Nathan said that the NAD ruling didn’t say that Caraway could stop telling its Teflon Flu origin story. “Its recommendation was about the context in which my story appeared and ensuring we weren’t suggesting that traditional non-stick cookware is likely to cause Teflon flu under normal use,” he wrote. “We adjusted our marketing accordingly.”

In response to the allegations that Caraway “preys on consumer fears associated with some PFAS chemicals,” Nathan acknowledged that “Scientists avoid blanket claims that all PFAS have the same risk. But, he said, “at the same time, many scientists and regulators treat PFAS as a class or as subclasses of concern.” He then pointed to a recent report from an expert appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council, which expressed concern about the potential threat PFAS poses to human rights and environmental justice. 

“I believe it’s time to end the use of forever chemicals in cookware and consumer products, where alternatives exist,” Nathan said.

Conflicting messages

The debate over what ingredients or materials should be included in a particular product — and the shift toward labeling more products as “non-toxic” — isn’t just playing out in the cookware space.

For example, the number of aluminum-free deodorant brands has grown, even though studies show there is no clear link between aluminum in deodorant and health complications. But some consumers just want to put something on their armpits that contains fewer ingredients. Even some athleticwear brands are now positioning themselves as “non-toxic.” 

Anita Rao, an associate professor at Georgetown University, has studied what works to debunk misinformation in advertising. In a 2022 experiment, Rao and her colleagues looked at three ingredients in product categories where consumers are inundated with claims about what’s toxic and non-toxic — aluminum in deodorant, fluoride in toothpaste and GMOs in nutritional shakes — and what could influence participants’ willingness to purchase. The research was peer-reviewed and published in the Journal of Marketing Research. 

Participants were randomly separated into control and experimental groups. The experimental groups were served messages designed to “debunk” claims made about these ingredients. For example, one message stated, “Aluminum-containing products are safe for topical use,” to debunk the idea that deodorant with aluminum isn’t safe to use.

The experimental groups saw the same debunking message, but the source of the debunking message varied — participants saw the message from a competing company, from the media or from a regulator. In all cases, the debunking message was served up as a social media post.

While participants indicated an increased willingness to purchase deodorant containing aluminum or toothpaste containing fluoride after viewing the debunking message, Rao and her colleagues found that “debunking by regulators is the only source that has a statistically significant effect for all categories.” The findings also suggested that companies may be better off releasing competing products, rather than trying to debunk a competitor’s message themselves. 

This has played out in several product categories: In deodorant, major players like Speed Stick and Dove now sell aluminum-free deodorant, while in toothpaste, Tom’s of Maine released a fluoride-free toothpaste in 2012.

“This happens because consumers want products with such claims,” Rao said. In the case of alleged fear-mongering over PFAS, “unless ALL firms coordinate to debunk, … even a few firms highlighting PFAS-free can shift demand toward those firms,” Rao wrote. 

Caraway’s marketing engine responds 

Nathan said, for him, it was a pretty straightforward decision to publicly respond to Groupe SEB and Meyer’s lawsuit. 

That’s because he viewed it as an opportunity to explain to more people what Caraway’s mission is. “I think we’re still seen as a cookware brand, and we are really a non-toxic home brand,” he added. By responding to the lawsuit publicly, Caraway could then be seen as the brand fighting for PTFE- and PFAS-free cookware. 

Nathan pulled in Caraway’s team for an all-hands meeting shortly after the lawsuit was filed. “Lawsuits can be scary, but we really mobilized the team,” he said.

One of the first ways Caraway responded publicly to the lawsuit was to put up a petition asking for people’s support. “We thought hearing from the consumer was really the best way to affect change,” Nathan said. The petition has gotten more than 50,000 signatures to date. In addition to the billboards placed strategically near Groupe SEB’s New Jersey office, Caraway also put up dozens of wild and digital postings in New York City, which ran from May to June. The OOH ads promoted similar talking points about how “big cookware is suing us” and urged consumers to “join our fight.” 

Every other day, a small group of leaders at Caraway now meets to discuss any pivots that are needed, Nathan said. 

Now, “every batch of ads we create needs to have some ads that relate to the lawsuit,” he added. Nathan has also been posting publicly about the case on his personal LinkedIn account, almost on a weekly basis.

Any new developments in the lawsuit provide further fodder for marketing content. Since receiving the cease-and-desist in July, Caraway has leaned into big disclaimers in its advertising that it is not affiliated with “big cookware,” including by putting a “clarification” quiz on one of its landing pages. 

“Caraway’s decision to publicly emphasize the lawsuit is a potentially effective strategy because it can draw attention to the brand and, depending on its consumer base, may be perceived positively, Rao noted. But, “it also carries risks. If the case is settled or decided in favor of Meyer and Groupe SEB, for example, that outcome could damage Caraway’s credibility and make its messaging more vulnerable.” 

There’s also the risk of more lawsuits on the horizon. Over the summer, a California resident filed a class-action lawsuit alleging false and misleading advertising from Caraway. “The allegations have absolutely no merit, and we look forward to the opportunity to defeat this Complaint in Court,” Nathan said in a statement. 

While the lawsuit from Groupe SEB and Meyer plays out in court, Caraway is taking its same marketing playbook to new industries. As it promotes its new coffee maker, plastic — rather than non-stick coating — is now the target. 

“Contaminant detected: plastic, in your coffee,” Caraway said in one Instagram post promoting its new product. “New York, we have clean coffee,” the brand wrote in a promotion for a launch event. A spokesperson for Caraway said the first batch of coffee makers has sold out, and the product has already generated more than seven figures in sales since launching on September 22. 

“Caraway is one of a million voices today talking about forever chemicals,” Nathan said. “I personally feel like one out of every like five Reels on my Instagram is [about] plastic or forever chemicals. … Consumers are increasingly wanting healthier materials and consumer products.”