Is the Our Place Always Pan Safe? Three Versions, Three Different Answers
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Short answer: there are three pans called the Always Pan now, and they’re built from different materials, so they get different scores. The ceramic Always Pan 2.0 — the one in every ad — is a ceramic nonstick coating sprayed on aluminum, which puts it at a 3 new and a 2 once the coating wears, the same as Caraway. The Titanium Always Pan Pro cooks on bare titanium with no coating at all and earns a 4. The Cast Iron Always Pan is enameled cast iron and also a 4. None of them is dangerous. Only one of them is a pan you’d keep for twenty years.
The Always Pan is the pan that made “non-toxic cookware” a category. Our Place launched it in 2019 with a color palette, a beechwood spatula, and a promise to replace eight pieces of cookware, and it has sold in the millions since. We don’t own one. This is a materials review — built from Our Place’s own product pages and care instructions, its California chemical disclosure, its warranty terms, Consumer Reports’ testing, and the current Amazon listings — which is how we score everything on this site.
The three Always Pans
Always Pan 2.0 (ceramic nonstick). A cast aluminum body — Our Place says it’s made from recycled aluminum — with a ceramic nonstick coating the company calls Thermakind. Ceramic nonstick, across the industry, means a sol-gel coating: a silica-based liquid sprayed on and cured hard. It is not PTFE and not a fluoropolymer. The 2.0, which replaced the original in 2023, is oven-safe to 450°F (the original wasn’t oven-safe at all), works on induction, and comes with a lid, a nesting spatula, and a stainless steamer basket. It’s 10.5 inches; there’s an 8.5-inch Mini and a 12.5-inch Large. Our Place’s warranty on it is three years if you bought it from May 2025 onward, and one year before that.
Titanium Always Pan Pro. A different animal. This is a fully clad tri-ply pan: stainless steel outside, an aluminum core for heat spread, and a titanium cooking surface on top, with a pressed texture that Our Place says helps food release. The company’s pitch is that the surface is “constructed, not coated” — there is no nonstick layer to scratch off, which is why it’s rated for metal utensils, the dishwasher, and oven temperatures up to 1000°F, and why it carries a limited lifetime warranty. Titanium is one of the most inert metals you can cook on; it’s what surgical implants are made of.
Cast Iron Always Pan. Enameled cast iron with a lid — the same construction as a Le Creuset skillet. Enamel is glass fused to iron. Nothing to season, nothing to wear through in normal use, and a limited lifetime warranty from Our Place. The lid is rated to 425°F in the oven.
So when someone asks “is the Always Pan safe?” the first question back is: which one?
What Our Place says, and what it doesn’t
Our Place says its cookware is free of PTFE, PFOA, PFAS, lead, cadmium, and “other toxic materials,” and it says its products are tested by third-party labs. Here’s what we could and couldn’t confirm.
There’s no published lab report. Caraway posts its SGS test reports on its website: the lab’s name, what was tested, the detection limits. Our Place doesn’t. We looked for a current report with those details and didn’t find one; the most recent testing summary we found that the company had shared publicly dates to late 2020, and it listed what wasn’t detected without stating detection limits or which PFAS were screened. “Tested” without the report is a claim, not data. We say this about HexClad too, and the standard is the same for everyone.
Independent testing exists, and it’s clean. Consumer Reports, in a 2022 investigation of nonstick cookware, screened the ceramic Always Pan and other ceramic pans for dozens of PFAS compounds and didn’t detect any. That’s the single best piece of evidence about the ceramic version, and it’s in the pan’s favor. It says nothing about the titanium or cast iron lines, which came later.
The California disclosure is boring, which is good. California’s AB 1200 requires cookware sold in the state to disclose intentionally added chemicals from the state’s lists of concern. Our Place publishes it. For the ceramic-on-aluminum line it lists aluminum, iron, chromium, nickel, and manganese; for the titanium line, aluminum and chromium; for the cast iron line, iron, boron, and manganese. Those are the metals in the alloys and the enamel — a stainless steel pan would list chromium and nickel the same way. What matters is what’s not on the list: no lead, no cadmium, no fluorinated anything.
The ceramic coating is still a secret. Like every ceramic nonstick maker, Our Place tells you what’s not in Thermakind, not what is. That’s standard for the category and it’s why no ceramic pan scores above a 4 here.
The chipping question
This is the part that’s specific to the Titanium Pro, and it matters because the whole pitch is “no coating.”
Since the pan launched in early 2025, a share of owners have posted photos of the titanium surface chipping or flaking near the rim, and of pitting they describe as corrosion. In December 2025 a consumer law firm, Migliaccio & Rathod LLP, announced it was investigating complaints about chipping and corrosion on the Titanium Always Pan Pro and the Always Pan 2.0, and about whether “constructed, not coated” is an accurate description. As of this writing we’ve found no lawsuit filed. An investigation notice is a law firm looking for plaintiffs, not a finding, and we haven’t seen a teardown that settles the question.
Here’s why it matters for the score. If the titanium is a solid layer bonded to the aluminum core — the way the steel is bonded in any clad pan — then the pan is a 5: metal, all the way down, nothing to wear out. If the surface is a thinner titanium layer that can lift, then it behaves like a coating even if it isn’t one chemically, and the thing underneath it is aluminum. Titanium itself is harmless either way; a chip of it in your food is a chip of the same metal as a hip replacement. The question is durability, not toxicity. Our Place’s answer is the lifetime warranty, which is a real answer — it means a chipped pan is their problem, not yours.
The score, and why
Always Pan 2.0 (ceramic): 3 new, 2 worn. Exactly the construction and exactly the score we gave Caraway: a sol-gel ceramic coating on aluminum. The coating is fine while it’s intact, and Consumer Reports’ clean PFAS result plus the California disclosure are both points in its favor. But ceramic coatings lose their release in two to three years of normal use, and when this one goes you’re cooking on bare aluminum, which we score a 2. The three-year warranty is an honest match for that lifespan. A published lab report wouldn’t change the number; the physics of the coating would.
Titanium Always Pan Pro: 4. The cooking surface is a metal we’d cook on for life, there’s no coating to wear through, and it’s built like the clad stainless pans we score a 5. It loses one point for two things we can’t yet resolve: the reports that the surface chips, which would mean it’s a layer over aluminum after all, and the absence of any independent verification of what the surface is. If the chipping reports fade and someone credible confirms the construction, this is a 5, and the only “nonstick” pan on this site to get there.
Cast Iron Always Pan: 4. Enameled cast iron is a construction we score a 4 or 5 depending on whether the maker tests its enamel for lead and cadmium and says so. Our Place says so, and its California disclosure for the cast iron line names only iron, boron, and manganese. A posted lab report on the enamel — the colored ones especially — would make it a 5. Until then it’s a 4, the same score we give Lodge’s enameled line.
For reference, our scale: 5 is a single inert material (stainless, cast iron, carbon steel, glass); 4 is a coating we’re fine with on a metal we’re fine with; 3 is a coating with a shelf life or a transparency gap; 2 is PTFE or aluminum in contact with food; 1 is a hard no.
Should you buy it?
If what you want is the Always Pan — the color, the spatula, the eggs sliding — buy the ceramic 2.0 knowing what it is: a well-made consumable with a two-to-three-year life, no worse and no better than Caraway. Treat it like one. Low to medium heat, no cooking spray, no metal, hand wash, and replace it when the eggs start sticking rather than scrubbing harder.
If what you want is the Always Pan shape without the replacement cycle, the Titanium Pro is the interesting one, and the one we’d pick. It’s the only pan we’ve reviewed that promises nonstick behavior without a coating, and the lifetime warranty puts the durability risk on Our Place. Buy it from Our Place or from its own Amazon storefront so the warranty is clean, and if it chips, claim.
If what you want is enameled cast iron, the Cast Iron Always Pan is fine — but it’s a Lodge-class pan at a premium, and the premium is buying you a color and a lid.
And if what you want is to stop thinking about coatings altogether, every 5 below does that, and none of them will ever need replacing.
What we’d buy
Our Place Titanium Always Pan Pro — Score 4
Why it’s here: Bare titanium on a tri-ply body, no coating, metal utensils and dishwasher allowed, oven-safe to 1000°F, lifetime warranty. Expect it to behave like a good stainless pan with easier release, not like fresh Teflon — preheat it, then oil, then food. Buy from Our Place’s own listing.
Our Place Cast Iron Always Pan — Score 4
Why it’s here: If you’re set on the look, this is the version with nothing to wear out. Enameled cast iron, lid included, lifetime warranty, and a California disclosure that lists iron and nothing alarming. Heavy, like all cast iron; that’s the point.
Lodge 10.25″ Cast Iron Skillet — Score 5
Why it’s here: No enamel, no coating, no warranty needed. After a month of use it releases eggs better than a worn ceramic pan ever will, and it will outlive the Always Pan by a few decades. This is our daily pan and it’s in every guide on this site for a reason.
Made In Stainless Clad 12″ Frying Pan — Score 5
Why it’s here: The pan the Titanium Pro is competing with, minus the titanium and the open questions. Five-ply stainless, made in Italy, sold by Made In on Amazon, and usually cheaper than the Always Pan it’s sitting next to. Learn the preheat and it does everything the ceramic version does except feel slick on day one.
Caraway Stainless Steel Fry Pan — Score 5
Why it’s here: Caraway is the Always Pan’s direct rival, and its stainless line is the one we’d buy from either company: five-ply stainless, no coating, and the only cookware brand in this comparison that posts its lab reports with detection limits. Same pastel colors on the outside if that’s part of the appeal.
GreenPan Venice Pro — Score 4
Why it’s here: If you specifically want ceramic nonstick, this is the better way to build it: the same kind of coating, but on a stainless steel base instead of aluminum, so a worn Venice Pro is a stainless pan rather than an aluminum one. It’ll still need replacing in a couple of years; buy the one fry pan, not the set.
Our Place Always Pan 2.0 — Score 3
Why it’s here: Because if you’ve read all of this and still want the original, it’s a reasonable 3 and a well-made one: recycled aluminum, a ceramic coating that independent testing found PFAS-free, oven-safe now, and a three-year warranty that matches its real lifespan. Buy the single 10.5-inch pan from Our Place’s listing, cook on it gently, and plan to replace it.
Skip: the ceramic cookware sets (four coated consumables aren’t a better deal than one); any Always Pan from a reseller with no warranty; the original 2019–2022 Always Pan on the secondhand market, which wasn’t oven-safe and is probably near the end of its coating.
If you already own one
Ceramic 2.0 (or the original): it’s a 3 while the coating is intact, and it isn’t an emergency when it wears — a worn ceramic pan is an aluminum pan, which is what most of the world cooks on. Keep the heat at medium or below, skip the cooking spray (it bakes on and kills the release), hand wash, and when eggs stick on a clean, oiled surface, retire it to boiling water and buy something from the list above. If you bought it from May 2025 onward, you’ve got a three-year warranty; a coating that fails early is a claim, not a shrug.
Titanium Pro: use it exactly as Our Place says — preheat, then oil — and inspect the rim now and then. Any chipping or pitting is covered for life; photograph it and file a warranty claim rather than cooking around it.
Cast iron: treat it like Le Creuset. No thermal shock (don’t run a hot pan under the tap), wood or silicone on the enamel, and if the enamel chips to bare iron it’s still safe to use, just worth a warranty claim.
What would change our mind
For the ceramic 2.0, nothing short of a coating that doesn’t wear out — a lab report would be welcome but wouldn’t move a 3, because the score is about the aluminum underneath. For the Titanium Pro, one credible independent confirmation that the surface is solid titanium bonded to the core, plus a quiet year on the chipping reports: that’s a 5. For the cast iron, a posted lead and cadmium test on the enamel: that’s a 5. Our Place could do the last two by lunchtime.
Frequently asked
Is the Always Pan non-toxic?
The ceramic version is free of PTFE and PFAS by every account we can find, including Consumer Reports’ independent test, and its California disclosure lists only ordinary alloy metals. “Non-toxic” is a marketing word, not a standard; on our materials scale the ceramic pan is a 3, the titanium and cast iron pans a 4.
Is the Always Pan Teflon-free?
Yes. It’s a sol-gel ceramic coating, not a fluoropolymer. That’s true of every Our Place pan.
Is a scratched Always Pan safe to use?
A scratched ceramic coating exposes aluminum, which isn’t acutely dangerous but is what we score a 2. Cook gently on it and plan its replacement. A scratched Titanium Pro is a warranty claim.
Is the Titanium Always Pan Pro really uncoated?
Our Place says so, and the pan is rated for metal utensils, the dishwasher, and 1000°F, which no coated pan is. Some owners report chipping, which is under investigation by a consumer law firm as of late 2025. Nobody has shown the surface to be a chemical coating. It’s a 4 until that’s settled.
Which Always Pan is the safest?
The Titanium Pro and the Cast Iron both cook on a metal or a glass with nothing to wear out, and both score a 4. The ceramic 2.0 is a 3.
Always Pan or Caraway?
Same construction, same coating chemistry, same score — 3 new, 2 worn. Caraway publishes its lab reports; the Always Pan has a clean Consumer Reports test. Pick on price and color, and buy one pan, not a set. If you want a pan for life from either brand, it’s Caraway’s stainless or Our Place’s titanium.
Is the Always Pan oven-safe?
The 2.0 is, to 450°F. The original wasn’t. The Titanium Pro goes to 1000°F and the cast iron version is oven-safe with the lid rated to 425°F.
Does the Always Pan work on induction?
All three current versions do.
Is the Our Place Wonder Oven safe?
Yes, and it’s the Our Place product we like most: stainless steel interior, steel basket and rack, no coating where food goes (skip the included ceramic-coated bake pan). It’s a 5 in our air fryer guide.
How does the Titanium Pro compare to plain stainless?
Bare stainless is a 5 with fifty years of track record; the Titanium Pro is a 4 pending verification. Our stainless steel guide covers grades, nickel, and the clad pans we’d buy.
The bottom line
Three pans, one name. The ceramic Always Pan 2.0 is a competent 3: the same ceramic-on-aluminum construction as Caraway, with a clean independent PFAS test to its credit and a coating that will wear out on schedule. The Cast Iron Always Pan is a 4 that Lodge does for less. The Titanium Always Pan Pro is the one worth watching — bare titanium, no coating, lifetime warranty — and a 4 that becomes a 5 the day someone independent confirms what the surface is. If you’re buying the Always Pan for the long haul, buy that one. If you’re buying it for the eggs and the color, buy the ceramic and know it’s a three-year pan.
Scores last reviewed September 2026. How we score.
