Innate water and vacuum bottles listed with the Modular Design icon indicate that they have our proprietary collar system. Products with the modular collar allow Innate single wall and vacuum lids to be mixed and matched depending on activity or season, a great example of clean design. We have designed a flow controller that fits all our single wall water bottles plus accessories for specific Innate models such as the removable handle for our Kaze modular Vacuum bottle and the Me-Me ABC system.

The Innate Modular Collar accepts any lid from our V2 collection:

The Innate Flow Controller press fits into the mouth of any Innate V2 collar water bottles for a drip proof drink.	The Modular Collar is made from tested #5 food grade polypropylene for easy drinking and use in cool conditions; no more frozen lips on cold days!

The Innate Kaze vacuum bottle, showing modular collar with thermal stopper and removable handle:	The thread pattern of the V2 Collar allows for easy lid attachment, and fits screw-on adaptors of most backcountry water filters.

Customize your child’s Me-Me to match their developing motor skills!

Choosing materials and how they are assembled into Innate products can be viewed as a balancing act. A clean design made with materials that meet environmental health criteria is critical. Equally important is the responsibility for ensuring that the materials selected are durable, perform well, and factor in end of useful life disassembly and recycling. At Innate we view the art of choosing materials and construction processes for our products as evolutionary. We will continue our quest to offer superior products with a reduced ecological footprint, combined with sensible features that reveal themselves through daily use. Our goal is that you will experience lasting satisfaction from our products and recommend them to your friends; to us that is success.

We select materials that meet the above criteria and have been independently tested to the appropriate international standards and back this up with our chain of custody materials tracking processes. • For example, the materials used in our beverage containers include 304 18/8 stainless steel, plus phthalate-free #5 polypropylene. These components are independently tested to USFDA, California Proposition 65 and European Norm standards for food containers. Please find below a representative sampling of questions and answers from our FAQ section detailing materials and process issues, which we hope will help you to make responsible product choices.

Q: Why does Innate use stainless steel instead of polycarbonate, PET or aluminum?

Stainless steel is the best choice for durable food and drink containers for sports, work or school. Stainless steel is inert and sanitary, it does not require a liner nor will it leach chemicals, stain, corrode or rust. Polycarbonate and PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) are hard plastics which are used to make water and baby bottles. Worldwide, there are increasing levels of scientific and public concern about the health risks posed by these containers because they can leach chemicals called phthalates including bisphenol-A (BPA) and diethyl phthalate (DEP) into liquids and food. Aluminum is used in many drink containers; unlined bottles present issues of taste retention, leaching potentially harmful chemicals as well as being linked to Alzheimer's disease. To solve these issues, most aluminum bottles have a lining which unfortunately is prone to scratching; many of these liners may also be BPA based.

Q: What is stainless steel?

A: Stainless Steel is defined as an iron-carbon alloy with a minimum of 10.5% chromium content. The name originates from the fact that stainless steel does not stain, corrode or rust as easily as ordinary steel. There are many different types of stainless steel, austenitic, or 300 series stainless is alloyed with 18% chromium and 8% nickel, which makes it resistant to corrosion. We use a premium sanitary-grade commonly known as type 304 18/8 and is used for many food grade applications; it will not leach chemicals, stain, corrode or rust.

Q: What is the issue with polycarbonate?

Polycarbonate is known to leach BPA, and government regulations in countries like Canada and the USA set limits considered as safe. These regulations are based on studies which define the level at which a substance becomes toxic. Current exposure levels to BPA are well within these limits.

However, more recent studies have cast a different light on the issue. They are suggesting that BPA is harmful even at very low level by disrupting the development of tissues, which is a concern for pregnant women, new-borns, and young children. Those studies have also found that washing polycarbonates in hard detergents increases dramatically the amount of leaching.

BPA is known to mimic the human hormone estrogen. Hormones are a very special group of chemicals, used by our body to send messages to various organs and tissues in order to regulate their functioning. Our body uses them in small amounts, and this is why "low-dose" studies could be more appropriate to understand the impact of BPA.

Q: What are phtalates?

Phthalates are odorless, colorless chemicals that are added to plastic to make it soft and flexible. Phthalates are also known endocrine disruptors and can affect normal hormonal processes. Phthalates don’t stay in the plastics they soften or in the countless other products in which they are used. Instead, they migrate into the air, into food, and into people, including babies and children. CDC scientists have found phthalates in the urine and blood of Americans of all ages. Phthalate exposure has been linked to reduced testosterone levels, lowered sperm counts, early puberty in girls, genital defects in baby boys. Moreover, several studies in humans have shown some of these toxic effects at levels similar to what the average American is currently exposed. The CDC study of phthalates found that the breakdown product of diethyl phthalate (DEP) was the highest level phthalate found in the tested human population. DEP is used in the production of #1 PET bottles used for water and food packaging.

Q: What type of stainless steel do you use?

A: All our stainless steel drinking containers are made with a premium food-grade type 304 stainless steel containing 18% chromium and 8% nickel with documented raw materials testing. This material is chosen for its consistent quality and performance characteristics of not leaching chemicals, staining, corroding or rusting. The inside of Innate bottles are finished using an electrolytic charge and dolomitic sand blasting.

Q: What plastics do you use on the lids and collars of your food and drink containers and why?

A: We use a food grade polypropylene (pp) in the lids and collars; #5 resin code PP is a plastic with good durability and no known leaching characteristics The #5 PP parts are subject to our raw materials chain of custody, combined with testing by an independent agency, SGS, to US FDA and European Norm (EN) food container standards.

We bring a focused approach to ensuring that our testing and quality processes are your assurance of the integrity of our products. We do this through independent finished goods testing plus a comprehensive raw materials chain of custody which in plain English means having ongoing monitoring processes to ensure we are delivering products that meet our internal plus international food standards. For example, our food and drink containers are subject to a raw materials internal testing and tracking process, backed up by testing from an independent company, SGS, to US FDA , European Norm and California Prop 65 food container standards.

We will continue to expand on our current raw materials chain of custody testing program through the introduction of a “best in class” three sigma rating system. Three sigma gives a clear and accurate representation of data by removing any room for selective interpretation; here’s how it works. Quality Assurance staff test a random sample of the raw materials used in Innate containers to international standards using machines such as a spectrometer. The data from these tests are analyzed to determine the average or mean numbers from each test batch. Then the average deviation from the average test results, also known as the standard deviation, which represents the variation of test results within a different group of samples is calculated. A rating of three standard deviations or three sigma, the greek symbol used in formulas, means that 99.7% of our products will have results better than noted. Moving to the three sigma system is part of our ongoing commitment at to earn your trust through “best in class” processes so you can make responsible product choices.