From bakery trays to packaging lines, the opportunity for a new coating lies in helping food businesses control sticking, cleaning costs and chemical choices under demanding production conditions.
A bakery tray that releases its contents cleanly performs a small but valuable service. It preserves the shape of the product, shortens handling and makes the next production cycle easier to prepare. Repeated across a factory, that surface behaviour becomes a question of output and cost.
It is one reason the food industry’s search for PFAS-free materials extends beyond the label on a frying pan. Manufacturers need surfaces that work through repeated heating, contact with food and cleaning. A replacement has to earn its place in that operating environment.
Nanize is developing a response through polysilazane coating technology. The Norwegian company describes its formulations as PFAS-free and presents cookware and bakeware among its applications. Its recent recruitment material also identifies packaging and release liners within its commercial focus.
The proposition is attractive: preserve useful release properties while changing the chemistry that creates them. For food businesses considering Nanize, the next step is to connect that proposition to a particular product, production process and documented food-contact use.
How the coating is designed to work
Polysilazanes are silicon-nitrogen-based polymers that can be applied as coatings and converted during curing into a more extensively bonded structure. Nanize describes its process as producing a hard surface with dense cross-linking and strong attachment to the substrate. Its technology page reports catalyst-free curing in less than a minute at temperatures below 100 degrees Celsius.
The company also describes a cured network dominated by silicon-oxygen bonds. This is the basis for its description of the material as ceramic-like. The aim is to combine protective structure with a surface that can be tailored to an application’s functional requirements.
Several properties need to be considered separately. Low friction describes resistance to sliding. Nonstick performance concerns release from a surface. Water repellency describes how water wets that surface. A good result in one measurement is useful, but food manufacturers need tests that reproduce the behaviour they actually want to improve.
For a bakery, that may mean removing a delicate product from a mould. For a cookware brand, it may mean release after many cooking and washing cycles. For equipment designers, it may mean reducing resistance at selected mechanical contact points.
Nanize reports using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, or FTIR, to investigate curing and cross-linking across a substantial testing programme. That method supplies information about chemical bonds. Food-contact suitability, abrasion resistance and operating life require evidence appropriate to those separate questions.
Why food businesses are looking beyond PFAS
The concern about PFAS arises from persistence and the health effects associated with exposure to certain substances in the group. The EPA identifies potential effects involving immunity, reproduction and development, among other outcomes. These findings support efforts to reduce avoidable exposure, while recognising that substances, products and exposure conditions differ.
The regulatory changes are now affecting specific purchasing decisions. EU restrictions on PFAS above specified limits in food-contact packaging began applying in August 2026. In the United States, the FDA’s January 2025 determination made 35 food-contact notifications for PFAS-containing paper and paperboard grease-proofers ineffective after the uses were abandoned. Minnesota separately prohibits intentionally added PFAS in cookware within its covered new-product categories.
These requirements apply to different materials and markets. They give food businesses a reason to review their suppliers and product specifications with care, rather than assuming one rule covers every surface.
The FDA also reports negligible migration from highly polymerised nonstick cookware coatings under the conditions it describes. That finding matters when discussing consumer exposure. The broader commercial case for PFAS-free materials includes chemical stewardship, environmental persistence and market requirements, alongside the performance of the finished article.
Cookware and bakeware provide a direct application
Nanize explicitly identifies cookware and bakeware as target applications and describes the relevant coatings as FDA compliant. It presents rapid curing as a potential manufacturing advantage as well as a route to PFAS-free nonstick products. Those statements are the company’s product claims; a customer still needs the compliance basis for the selected formulation and intended use.
A cookware development programme could evaluate frying pans, roasting dishes or other defined products under their actual operating conditions. The useful questions are concrete. How readily does food release? What happens after repeated washing? Does performance change after abrasion or contact with acidic ingredients?
An industrial bakery could take a similarly focused approach to bread tins, cake moulds or reusable trays. A pilot might compare the incumbent surface and a Nanize formulation using the same recipe, release procedure and cleaning conditions. Differences in rejected products, handling effort and coating condition would help establish whether a change makes commercial sense.
The temperature at which a coating cures should also be distinguished from its allowable service temperature. A material that cures below 100 degrees Celsius is not automatically qualified for every oven cycle. Its working limits must be established for the product being manufactured.
Confectionery and prepared foods offer further possibilities
Beyond the applications Nanize names directly, its surface technology suggests candidates for joint development. These possibilities require validation and should be treated as proposed uses rather than established installations.
Confectionery offers one example. A manufacturer could investigate a suitable formulation on selected moulds or product-contact components where sticking creates damage or handling delays. The trial would need to preserve the characteristics that matter to that product, including appearance and texture. Release alone would be an incomplete measure of success.
Prepared-food production offers another avenue. Removable contact parts, guides or utensils could be considered where residue is difficult to remove. The evaluation would begin with the actual food and cleaning process, since a surface suitable for a dry product may be unsuitable for repeated contact with hot, oily or acidic foods.
The commercial opportunity lies in solving a defined source of waste or downtime. That makes a narrow, measurable application more useful than a broad promise that one coating can improve every stage of food production.
Food processing equipment demands careful selection
Processing machinery introduces additional engineering requirements. A component may face continuous sliding, impact, vibration or pressure as well as contact with food. Its geometry and surface finish can be essential to the equipment’s function.
A prospective Nanize project could therefore start with a removable component whose operating conditions can be reproduced and whose condition can be inspected. A pilot would examine adhesion, wear and changes in performance over repeated production and cleaning cycles before extending use.
Rigid coatings and flexible seals also perform different jobs. A surface treatment should not be assumed to replace a gasket or another component designed to deform under load. Any substitution needs to preserve the original part’s mechanical function as well as satisfy chemical and food-contact requirements.
For dairy, sauces and other wet processing, possible evaluations would need to address prolonged liquid contact and the site’s specific cleaning regime. Equipment exposed to steam, pressure or aggressive detergents presents a different development problem from a lightly loaded guide on a dry packaging line.
These distinctions create opportunities for collaboration between Nanize’s formulation specialists and equipment manufacturers. The customer supplies a well-defined operating problem; the coating can then be developed and tested against that problem.
Packaging involves both materials and machinery
Packaging is prominent in the PFAS transition because fluorinated treatments have been used to resist oil and water on paper and paperboard. Denmark restricted paper and board food-contact materials with added PFAS in 2020, while the EU’s newer packaging regulation extends relevant requirements across its market.
For Nanize, packaging research could include candidate barrier or release surfaces, depending on the formulation and substrate. Development would need to establish grease resistance, performance at folds and seams, and compatibility with printing or sealing. A successful coating must fit the way the package is converted and used.
End-of-life performance matters too. A PFAS-free coating does not, by itself, establish that the finished package is recyclable or compostable. Those are separate claims about a complete material system and its relevant recovery process.
Packaging machinery presents another route. Nanize identifies bottle handling as an industrial application for low-friction coatings on equipment or products. A food or beverage producer could investigate selected contact points for reduced scuffing or smoother movement, with food-contact status determined by the actual location and use.
The distinction is commercially helpful. Coating a packaging-machine component and developing a coating for the package itself require different evidence, even when both projects serve the same production line.
Cleaning performance can strengthen the business case
Nanize links its surface technology to reduced maintenance and longer material life. In a food factory, a useful development question is whether a qualified coating makes a defined residue easier to remove without compromising surface integrity.
That benefit should be measured within the established sanitation process. A pilot could record cleaning time, water and detergent use, inspection results and the condition of the surface after repeated cycles. Less residue remaining after cleaning could be valuable, but easy cleaning alone does not demonstrate antimicrobial activity or control of allergens.
The distinction protects the value of the result. A coating that helps an operator clean more efficiently can offer a meaningful advantage without making claims about preventing foodborne illness. Hygiene procedures still need validation for the food and facility concerned.
Durability determines whether any early advantage persists. A surface that performs well on its first day must also be examined after the wear and cleaning it will face in service. Customers can then assess maintenance intervals and the appropriate point for inspection, recoating or replacement.
Food contact compliance follows the exact use
PFAS-free composition addresses one aspect of a material’s chemistry. Food-contact compliance addresses the substances in the finished article and the conditions under which they may contact food.
The FDA explains that an article’s regulatory status depends on its individual components. An applicable food-contact notification is specific to the identified manufacturer, substance and conditions of use. Depending on the material, other regulatory bases may apply. Customers should obtain the relevant documents and confirm that their chosen use falls within them.
In the EU, the framework for food-contact materials includes Regulation EC 1935/2004 and good manufacturing practice requirements. Additional rules can depend on the material and jurisdiction. A coating’s description as ceramic-like does not, on its own, determine which requirements apply.
For an application involving direct food contact, the practical assessment should match the expected food types, time and temperature of contact, and repeated-use conditions. The evaluation may need to address migration, residual substances, wear and changes after cleaning.
This documentation is part of building a reliable product. It allows a cookware brand, food producer or equipment supplier to make a claim that is specific enough to be supported and useful enough for its customers to understand.
Measuring the value on a production line
A practical pilot could begin with one product or removable part, a defined Nanize formulation and a comparison against the existing solution. Keeping the food, operating conditions and cleaning method consistent would help make the results interpretable.
The measures should follow the business problem. A bakery might record clean release and rejected products. A container-handling trial might examine scuffing and stoppages. A cleaning trial might track labour and resource use alongside validated sanitation outcomes. Each trial should also establish how coating condition changes over time.
The financial assessment then needs to include the whole implementation cost. Coating application, preparation, inspection, downtime and expected recoating all affect the result. Lower curing temperature may reduce energy demand, but the saving needs to be measured on the actual coating line rather than inferred from temperature alone.
Consider a hypothetical saving of 20 minutes of cleaning per production day over 250 days. That amounts to about 83 hours annually. At an assumed loaded labour cost of EUR 30 an hour, the direct labour value would be roughly EUR 2,500. This is an illustration, not a Nanize customer result. It shows how a modest operational change can be assessed against the cost of adoption.
The team working on the transition
Nanize’s public leadership includes Dr Kingsley Iwu, CTO and founder; Håvard Lillebo, CFO and founder; David Hogg, CEO; and Jerry Stokes, chief commercial officer. Their stated backgrounds span materials science, entrepreneurship and industrial commercialisation.
The published US patent credits Kingsley Odinaka Iwu, Nguyen Hong Quang, Vivek Kumar Singh and Anisa Yaseen as inventors.
Paul George Savluc worked on online business development, marketing, software and AI-related work. Patent credits describe contributions to the invention and are distinct from current employment roles.
This combination of research and commercial work is relevant to the food industry’s transition. A new material needs a route from formulation through testing to a product that a manufacturer can buy, process and document consistently.
Nanize has identified an important set of problems to address. Food businesses want surfaces that release reliably, survive their cleaning processes and meet the chemical requirements of the markets they serve. Well-qualified PFAS-free formulations could give those businesses a useful way to improve their products and operations together.
For application development and technical discussions, visit www.nanize.com or contact Nanize.