per unit at 1,000 units — goods, agent fee, freight, US import fees and delivery. Duty is not included; see below.
Basis: Aggregated from 46 current wholesale listings in this category, costed with our standard import model. volume and weight assume a typical export carton for this category, not one supplier's packing list — 60 × 32 × 30 cm, 200 per carton, 17 kg gross, giving 0.00029 CBM and 0.09 kg per unit; your own carton will move the freight line. duty excluded, because the rate depends on how your product classifies — the table below shows what any rate adds. figures as of 1 September 2026. individual figures are not attributable to any one supplier.
What duty adds
We do not publish a single duty rate for this category, because classification depends on the product's construction and materials rather than on what it is called. Rather than print a number that would be wrong for some readers, here is what any given rate does to the figures above.
| Duty rate | Landed per unit | Versus no duty |
|---|---|---|
| No duty | $0.95 | — |
| 5% | $0.98 | +3.6% |
| 12% | $1.03 | +8.6% |
| 25% | $1.12 | +18.0% |
| 37% | $1.20 | +26.7% |
Establishing your own rate is your responsibility as importer rather than your supplier's — our guide to classification sets out how, including requesting a binding ruling if you intend to import repeatedly.
Silicone utensils are cheap to make and expensive to get wrong. Every shape needs a mould, and every mould is a fixed cost that has to be spread across the order. Meanwhile the material itself — the thing your customer puts in a hot pan and then in their mouth — is trivially easy to adulterate and impossible to judge by eye.
Where the money goes
Tooling dominates the first order and then disappears. A set of six utensils is six moulds, and buyers routinely underestimate this because they think in terms of one product. Reducing the set size, or reusing shapes the factory already tools, is the most effective cost decision available at the design stage.
After tooling, the material is the variable that matters, and it is the one where a lower quotation usually means something specific rather than better efficiency.
What drives cost in this category
Mould count
One per shape, charged once. A six-piece set carries six tooling charges, which is why set products look disproportionately expensive at low volume.
Material purity
Cheap silicone is bulked out with mineral filler. It costs less, moulds fine, and fails food-contact testing. This is the central risk of the category.
Food-contact testing
Requirements differ by market and testing is charged per material and configuration, not per unit. It is discovered late more often than it is planned for.
Cores and handles
Utensils with a steel or nylon core are a two-material assembly, which changes both the tooling and the failure modes.
Minimum order quantities
| Factory's existing shapes, stock colours | Lowest floor, and no tooling charge at all. |
| Existing shapes, your colour | Set by the colour batch minimum rather than the moulding run. |
| Your logo moulded in | Requires modifying or adding an insert to the tool, charged once. |
| Fully custom shapes | Highest floor plus one mould per shape. Reduce the set size before you reduce anything else. |
Where these are made
Silicone moulding is widely distributed, with a great deal of capacity in Guangdong and Zhejiang. For small quantities and multi-SKU kitchen sets, Yiwu is often the practical entry point; for larger dedicated runs the work sits with specialist moulders and consolidates through Ningbo.
What goes wrong
- Filler adulteration. The defining problem. Twist or stretch a piece hard: heavily filled silicone shows a white streak where pure silicone does not. It is not a laboratory test, but it takes five seconds and catches the worst of it.
- Odour after heating. Inadequately post-cured product smells when it first meets a hot pan, and customers read that as unsafe whether or not it is.
- Colour bleeding. Pigment migrating into food or onto surfaces, usually a sign of the same corner-cutting as the filler problem.
- Core separation. On cored utensils, the silicone parting from the steel or nylon insert after repeated heating.
The twist test belongs in every inspection of this category, alongside a bake-and-smell check. Neither replaces proper food-contact testing, but both catch the cheapest failures before a container ships.
