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Letter From The President of LakenUSA

Dear LakenUSA Customer,

This week’s events in the bottle industry have made many folks uncomfortable in many ways. We share your concerns. As a manufacturer of both aluminum and stainless steel reusable bottles, we would like to openly discuss the history of BPA and Laken’s history, our third-party interactions with laboratory testers, retailers and consumers, and the technology used in making LakenUSA’s certified, BPA Free bottles.

History
In the past two years Bisphenol A or “BPA”, the material found in polycarbonate plastics, as an epoxy curing ingredients and subsequent components of many liners of metal containers, has come to the forefront in a debate relating to its toxicity to the human body.

In 2007, at the same time that the FDA started the “low dose” assessment of BPA and its health effects, polycarbonate bottles moved to the forefront of the BPA debate because it was demonstrated that under extreme heat, like in a dishwasher, or cold, like freezing water in the bottle, BPA was found to leach from the polycarbonate plastic.

Subsequently, due to the popularity of these plastic bottles and the large population of users, investigative news stories started to raise awareness of the health concerns surrounding BPA and cited the polycarbonate bottles as an easily identifiable source. Metal bottles made from stainless steel and aluminum were an easy choice to replace a plastic bottle. However, stainless steel bottles leave a hint of taste to the liquid, potentially have issues associated with leaching enough nickel to cause allergic reactions, and are made in China. These reasons gave rise to lined aluminum bottles as a preferred choice for individuals looking for a bottle that was leach free of BPA.

Third-Party Interactions
From 2007 until June 2008, Laken’s bottle coating was a high density phenolic epoxy, and was favorably exceeding the most stringent global testing standards — which was the EU standard — for leaching BPA. At this same time concern for BPA in coatings for aluminum canned goods and bottles came to Laken’s attention. As a measure to follow through with diligence, Laken tested its bottles once again, but this time to a much higher level of precision. Governing bodies require measurement to Parts Per Million, but Laken chose to test to Parts Per Billion. At this level Laken found that the phenolic epoxy coating showed trace amounts of BPA presence. That being said, if we used the same “blinders on” testing that some of our aluminum bottle competitors have been using we could have claimed that LakenUSA bottles demonstrated no presence of BPA.

We felt that this practice would have been deceptive to our customers and dealers, and LakenUSA opted to disclose all test findings to our retailers. As a result, we did not win as much business as some of our competitors, but we believed it was the right thing to do.

As an aluminum bottle company, we feel that LakenUSA has been lumped in with the troublesome practices of our competitors. LakenUSA’s history of transparency and truthful approach of disclosing all information about our bottle liner allowed LakenUSA customers to make educated and informed decisions.

Please let us reiterate, FULL DISCLOSURE is the position that we have taken from the start. Back in 2007 and into 2008, when our bottles were lined with our phenolic epoxy liner we made sure to disclose our testing results to all parties interested. LakenUSA has always been willing to provide the ingredients of our liner to our customers and even the source after signing a non-disclosure agreement. Some retailers we spoke to felt that our non-leaching phenolic epoxy coating wasn’t an issue because it met the legal requirements, and some others resigned to put business on hold while we waited for our new BPA Free coating to be developed and available for mass production. As proof to LakenUSA’s integrity, our retail partners are willing to back LakenUSA’s claims of transparency upon request.

Furthering the timeline, in June 2008, LakenUSA finalized testing on a new type of polyamide liner that has properties similar to nylon-6, which is 100% BPA Free, 100% BPA Leach Free, VOC free, and free of phthalates, BADGE, BFDGE, and NOGE (those acronyms are other chemicals like BPA and PFOA that we should all be watching). This new aluminum bottle liner exceeds the world’s health laws and regulations governing food and beverage containers. LakenUSA’s new lining also proves to have all of the high performance characteristics related to a taste free and stable liner, suitable for use with water, citrus, alcohol, carbonated and sports drinks. LakenUSA’s liner is the first of its kind to line aluminum bottles and contains a complete absence of BPA. To back up this claim we have required a notarized affidavit from our material supplier and a third party verification from an independent lab in order to verify the claim is true. Check and re-check.

Technology Involved
As the US distributor for a Spanish Company, we demanded a seat at the R&D table starting in 2007 before we started selling bottles. We asked Laken S.A. to make the investment needed to develop the technology and innovation to build a BPA free aluminum bottle in its European factory.

The result of these research efforts is a new polyamide bottle liner unique to Laken bottles, and to date Laken is the only bottle manufacturer with the necessary equipment and expertise to apply and cure this type of BPA free liner in an aluminum bottle. (You can download test results here showing our third party BPA Free certification). LakenUSA bottles are made under the strictest quality control standards and the Spanish manufacturing facility is ISO 9001 certified.

LakenUSA took its first delivery on this new BPA Free liner in June 2008, and in August LakenUSA had made the move to quarantine old stock and start filling orders with bottles lined with the 100% BPA Free liner. In August 2008 we moved our general stock from an outdated liner that contained trace amounts of BPA, to our current liner that is 100% BPA free. We will continue to be eager to share information regarding our material components and the source of this liner with our retailers and consumers.

If you feel that you have been misled by your retailer or by us at LakenUSA, or if you want to tell us how you would have handled it, please contact us – we want to hear from you — and we will do all that we can to make right by you. We sell our bottles to our friends and families and what you think about our integrity is frankly more important to us than selling you a bottle. We want to do well by doing good, so, please visit our website at www.LakenUSA.com to find out more information about aluminum bottles, BPA, and if you are looking to replace your bottle with a BPA Free bottle send an email to Support@LakenUSA.com. Please feel free to email me with any comments or concerns that you may have. If you would like to contact me directly, my address is Greg@LakenUSA.com.

Sincerely,

Greg Garrigues
President LakenUSA USA
Greg@LakenUSA.com