Food Grade Water Storage Containers UK: Buying Guide

Food grade is not a logo a manufacturer can slap on at will. In the UK, plastics that touch food or drinking water are covered by retained EU law, principally Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004 on food contact materials and the plastics specific Regulation (EU) No 10/2011. The rules require that materials in contact with food must not transfer their constituents into it in quantities that could endanger health or change the taste and smell of what is stored.

In practice, a genuinely food grade container means three things:

• The plastic resin itself is an approved food contact material, usually virgin HDPE or PP rather than recycled plastic of unknown origin.
• The manufacturing process avoids contamination, mould release agents and pigments that are not food approved.
• The maker can back the claim, usually shown by the wine glass and fork symbol moulded into the plastic or printed on the packaging.

That glass and fork symbol is the quickest visual check. It is the recognised food safe mark across the UK and EU. No symbol does not always mean unsafe, but a container with it moulded in has been made on a food contact production line, which is exactly what you want for water you plan to drink months after filling.

Flip any plastic container over and you will find a triangle of chasing arrows with a number inside. That is the resin identification code, and for water storage it is the single most useful marking on the container.

• Code 2, HDPE (high density polyethylene): the standard for water containers, jerry cans and water butts. Chemically stable, does not contain BPA, tolerates temperature swings and takes decades to degrade. This is what you want.
• Code 1, PET: what supermarket bottled water comes in. Fine as sealed bottles for their shelf life, but thin PET is not designed for repeated refilling over years.
• Code 4, LDPE and Code 5, PP: both food safe plastics. PP is common for caps and taps rather than container bodies.
• Code 3, PVC and Code 6, PS: avoid for drinking water storage. Not designed for long term potable water contact.
• Code 7, Other: a catch all that includes polycarbonate, the plastic that historically contained BPA. Avoid code 7 for stored drinking water unless the maker explicitly documents the resin.

The short version: look for the 2 in the triangle, ideally alongside the glass and fork symbol. That pairing covers both the resin and the production standard.

Mostly no, and here is why the marketing needs decoding. BPA (bisphenol A) is used to make polycarbonate, the rigid clear plastic in some older water cooler bottles, and some epoxy linings. HDPE, the material nearly every UK water container is made from, is manufactured without BPA in the first place. A listing shouting about the absence of BPA in an HDPE can is technically true but about as meaningful as advertising vegetables as vegetarian.

Where BPA is worth checking: clear rigid containers marked code 7, metal containers with epoxy linings, and very old reused water cooler bottles. For new HDPE cans, the more useful questions are about virgin versus recycled resin and whether the plastic is food contact approved, because recycled HDPE of unknown origin can carry residues from whatever the plastic held in its first life.

UN approval is the other marking you will see on quality jerry cans, and it is widely misunderstood. The UN mark is a packaging performance certification from the dangerous goods transport rules. A code like 3H1/Y1.9/150 moulded into a can means it passed drop tests, stack tests, leakproofness tests and internal pressure tests to an audited standard.

Two things follow from that:

• UN approval is not a food safety mark. It certifies the container is strong and leakproof, not that the plastic is food contact approved. You want both claims, and the better listings state both.
• A UN approved can is built to survive being dropped while full, stacked under load and sealed for years. For emergency storage, that build standard is worth having even though you will never ship chemicals in it.

Decoding the start of the mark: 3H1 means a non removable top plastic jerrican, 3H2 a removable top version. The letter X, Y or Z indicates the packing group severity it passed, with X the most demanding. You do not need to memorise the rest; the presence of a genuine embossed code, visible in listing photos rather than just claimed in the title, is the point.

Marketplace listings are written by sellers, not regulators, so run any candidate container through this five point check before buying:

• Look for the symbols in the photos, not the title. Zoom in for the glass and fork mark, the resin code triangle and any embossed UN code. Moulded markings are hard to fake; title keywords are not.
• Check the material is stated as HDPE, ideally virgin or new HDPE. Vague wording like strong plastic or heavy duty plastic with no resin named is a flag.
• Read the questions and answers section. Buyers routinely ask is this safe for drinking water, and seller answers are on record there.
• Check what the can was designed for. Fuel jerry cans, including the excellent steel NATO pattern cans, use linings and seals designed for petrol and diesel. Never store drinking water in anything sold as a fuel can, and never reuse a can that has held fuel, however well rinsed.
• Smell it on arrival. A food grade HDPE can should have almost no odour inside. A strong chemical smell that persists after a bicarbonate rinse means send it back.

One more honest note: food grade multi packs in this category mostly sit in the £40 to £55 range, and the cheapest single cans are cheaper still. Spend the small difference on cans with verifiable markings rather than the lowest listing on the page.

The picks above are the formats that pass the checks in this guide and are listed on amazon.co.uk at the time of writing. A quick note on how to use them together: the four can multi packs are your sealed reserve, filled, dated and left alone, while a single tapped container is the working can you decant from during an actual interruption. Check price on Amazon covers the reserve role, and Check price on Amazon covers the working can.

If you want the full comparison against soft bladders, water butts and larger tanks, that lives in the best emergency water storage containers guide.

Some containers fail the standard no matter how clean they look:

• Used milk bottles and juice cartons. The plastic is food grade but milk proteins and sugars soak into HDPE and feed bacterial growth. UK resilience guidance consistently advises against reusing milk containers for stored drinking water.
• Anything that has held fuel, chemicals or cleaning products. HDPE absorbs hydrocarbons permanently. No amount of washing recovers a fuel can for potable use.
• Garden water butts for drinking supply. Most are not made from food contact approved plastic and are designed for rainwater on plants. Fine for flushing water, not for the kettle.
• Clear containers stored in daylight. Even food grade PET and translucent HDPE let light through, and light plus time equals algae. Opaque cans in a dark cupboard solve this for nothing.
• Unbranded code 7 containers. Unknown resin, unknown history, no way to verify. There are too many verifiable HDPE options to gamble here.

The working planning figure used across UK and international guidance is a minimum of 2.5 to 3 litres of drinking water per person per day, with around 10 litres per person per day covering drinking, basic hygiene and food preparation more comfortably. For a two person household, a sensible stored base is 100 to 150 litres: one Hydrofyx style four can pack plus a tapped working container gets you there, and a second multi pack covers a family of four. The gov.uk Prepare campaign recommends keeping bottled water at home as part of a basic emergency kit, and bought bottles work alongside refillable cans: bottles for grab and go, cans for the household base.

Once the containers are sorted, the other half of the job is filling and keeping them properly: cleaning, rotation and where to store them is covered step by step in how to store water long term in the UK, and the wider household water plan lives in our emergency water guide.