Budget-conscious buyers hunting for rock-bottom prices at Temu may be getting more than they bargained for, a recent U.K. news program has found.
In “The Truth About Temu: Dispatches,” Channel 4 reporter Ellie Flynn found dangerous levels of toxic heavy metals in items from a $4 “silver effect” necklace to a $14 children’s jacket.
Operated by PDD Holding under the auspices of WhaleCo, the Chinese-founded marketplace has gained a massive following over the past two years, with one-quarter of the British population downloading the app and some half a million users worldwide.
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Temu’s explosive rise has everything to do with the impossibly cheap prices it offers on everything from swimsuits to electric scooters, which can cost 10-40 percent less than on Shein, even for identical goods. That and the gamification of commerce—think discount roulette wheels and countdown timers—that once led GlobalData Retail analyst Neil Saunders to describe it as “addictive as sugar.”
But the “Shop Like a Billionaire” platform, which did not respond to a request for comment, doesn’t manufacture any of the products it advertises. Rather, it depends on an expansive network of third-party sellers from China to supply its immense assortment of goods. A supplier code of conduct requires these sellers to “never bring products or packaging to market that may cause harm to Temu’s customers.” The company also professes to have a robust “vetting, monitoring and enforcement process” that ensures products meet regulatory requirements.
When Flynn brought the jacket to a toxicology lab at the University of Reading for testing, the material was rife with antimony at what professor of organic chemistry Laurence Harwood described as “unacceptable levels.” Though no legislation currently regulates the amount of antimony in clothes, the heavy metal can have “very, very bad effects on the body,” particularly with the nervous system, over a long period of time, he said.
The silver-look necklace, meanwhile, revealed 10 times the amount of lead allowed under British regulations, prompting Harwood to note that children younger than six are particularly vulnerable to lead poisoning and that the heavy metal can cause neurological issues in “young and old alike.”
Temu told Channel 4 that its own testing confirmed Harwood’s findings and that it has permanently removed the items in question. It’s working with the merchants involved, the company said.
This isn’t the first time Temu has been dinged for hawing products tainted with hazardous chemicals. In April, the Seoul Metropolitan Government said that goods from Temu—along with those from AliExpress and Shein—were contaminated with carcinogens, so much so that half of the 22 products it tested were declared unsuitable for use. A children’s swim cap, for instance, was flagged for concentrations of lead 20 times higher than was permitted in South Korea. And a pair of shoes from Shein contained 428 times the permitted level of phthalates, a class of plasticizers that are known endocrine disruptors. (Shein says that it has strict supplier controls and standards and that it “takes product safety very seriously.”)
De minimis thresholds—a topic being hotly debated in both the United States and Europe—could be part of the reason harmful items fall through the cracks.
“Unlike officially imported products, overseas direct purchase products enter the country without separate safety inspections, creating a de facto safety blind spot,” a Seoul city official said. “We cannot stand idly by while citizens’ health is at risk, so we have been announcing the results of our inspections conducted with professional institutions every week.”
