Consumer guide

How to test food for BPA and phthalates

By Laboratory.love · Published September 23, 2026

Review: this guide has not been independently peer reviewed. Regulatory status is current as of the date above.

Measuring BPA and phthalates at the parts-per-billion levels found in food requires laboratory analysis by mass spectrometry. You have three options: send samples to an accredited laboratory that accepts them, use a service that buys and tests samples for you, or look up results that have already been published. Whichever you choose, test more than one sample of the product, ideally from different production lots, and ask for the laboratory’s numeric reporting limits so that a “not detected” result means something.

Three ways to get a food tested

Ways to get a food tested for BPA and phthalates
Option	What you do	What to check
Hire a laboratory directly	Find an analytical laboratory that accepts food samples from the public, buy the product, and ship it following the laboratory’s instructions.	Accreditation scope, panel, reporting limits, and price per sample.
Use a testing service	Choose the product; the service buys samples and manages the laboratory. Laboratory.love does this from $1,995 per product.	Who performs the analysis, how samples are sourced, and what is published.
Check published results	Search existing results, such as our results directory and open dataset.	Test date, number of samples, method, and who commissioned the test.

What to ask a laboratory before you pay

01Accreditation. Is the laboratory accredited to ISO/IEC 17025, and does its scope of accreditation list this test for this kind of food? Accreditation is granted for specific tests, methods, and sample types, not for everything a laboratory does.
02Analytes. Exactly which phthalates and which bisphenols are on the panel? Panels differ. Ours covers 18 phthalates plus BPA, BPS, and BPF; a narrower panel can miss chemicals you care about.
03Method. Which analytical method is used for each panel? Ask whether the method is validated for your kind of food. Our laboratory uses GC-MS/MS for phthalates and LC-MS/MS for bisphenols.
04Reporting limits. What are the numeric limits of detection and quantitation for each chemical, in ng/g, for your food? Without a number, “not detected” cannot be compared with any safety threshold. This matters most for BPA.
05Contamination control. How does the laboratory check for background contamination, and does it report blank results? Phthalates are used in many plastics, so it is fair to ask how the laboratory keeps them out of your result.
06The report. Will you receive results for each sample, with units, detection status, test dates, and a certificate of analysis? Sample-level data lets you see variation and interpret non-detects; a single averaged number hides both.

On reporting limits: EFSA’s 2023 tolerable daily intake for BPA is so low that a single 100 g serving reaches it for a 70 kg adult at about 0.14 ng/g. A BPA non-detect only shows a serving is below that level if the reporting limit is lower still. Our bisphenols guide explains the calculation.

How many samples to test

One sample can mislead. PlasticList found that two samples of the same product differed in plastic-chemical levels by an average of 59% (relative percent difference). Testing several samples, ideally from different production lots, shows how much a product varies; we test three per product. A result still describes only the samples tested.

Buying and handling samples

Buy the product the way any shopper would, so the sample reflects what is sold.
Keep it sealed in its original packaging. Moving food into another container could add or remove the chemicals you want to measure.
Record the lot code, best-by date, store, and purchase date for each sample.
Follow the laboratory’s instructions on sample size, storage, and shipping.

How Laboratory.love does it

We buy three samples of each product anonymously at retail, targeting different lots, and Light Labs, an ISO/IEC 17025-accredited laboratory, analyzes each for 18 phthalates and BPA, BPS, and BPF. Reports typically arrive 6–8 weeks after an order is confirmed, and results are published unless the customer opts out in writing before testing begins. See testing and pricing and our methodology.

After you get results

Our guide to reading lab results covers the steps: read concentrations in ng/g (parts per billion), note which results are detected, below the limit of quantitation, or not detected, and compare exposure only after accounting for serving size and body weight. Our phthalates guide and bisphenols guide walk through both, and the 2026 research report shows what our commissioned tests have found.

Sources

Corrections

Report errors through the contact page. Confirmed corrections are dated on this page and in the changelog, following the methodology’s correction policy. This guide is general information, not medical advice.

Test a food you eat

We test three retail samples of a packaged food for 18 phthalates plus BPA, BPS, and BPF, and publish the results.

See testing and pricing Browse results