Pillowfort plates, bowls and tableware

The reports, as CPSC published them

1. No one hurt

   Made Apr 11, 2026 · , sent to the company Apr 27, 2026 · , published by CPSC May 11, 2026

   The product, in the report: The product is a children’s dinner plate sold at Target under Target’s owned brand Pillowfort, featuring licensed Hot Wheels artwork. It is marketed and sold as the 11.25 inch Hot Wheels Track Plate. The product is listed on Target.com as item A-94875944, with Target DPCI 200-08-6273. It is a round, bright orange plate, approximately 11.25 inches in diameter, molded to resemble a Hot Wheels tire, with a printed Hot Wheels wheel and logo graphic in the center of the eating surface in black, white, and red, and additional blue printed graphics on the food-contact area. It is designed and marketed for young children’s mealtime use and is intended for direct food contact. According to the label adhered to the underside of the plate, the product is made of polypropylene with at least 20 percent post-consumer recycled content, is BPA free, dishwasher safe, and microwave safe for reheating only. The label also states “Dist. by Target Corp., Mpls., MN 55403” and “(C) 2026 Target Brands, Inc.”, with country of origin listed as China. The underside of the plate is also embossed with “TARGET 200086273 F16830953-12/25”, indicating a December 2025 date code. Pillowfort is a Target owned brand, which means Target Corporation is the brand owner, private labeler, distributor, and importer of record for this children’s product. Hot Wheels appears on the product as licensed artwork only. The defect I am reporting is that the printed colored graphics on the food-contact eating surface of the plate are flaking and detaching during normal, intended use, including after routine washing and during use by my 2 year old child. Photographs clearly show blue paint flakes and smeared paint residue lifting off the eating surface of the plate near the central Hot Wheels graphic.

   I purchased a Hot Wheels-branded children’s plate from Target for my toddler, who is 2 years old. The plate is intended for direct food contact and is clearly marketed and designed for young children. After a short period of normal use, the painted surface coating on the plate began coming off in multiple ways. Paint flakes detached after washing with normal hand and dishwasher cleaning. Additional flaking appeared during ordinary use while serving food. More paint came off when my child handled and mouthed the plate, which is completely expected and unavoidable behavior for a child in this age group. The coating is not simply fading or lightly scratching. Visible paint flakes are detaching from the surface. My concerns are serious because of the age of the intended user and the nature of the failure. First, physical and ingestion hazard. A 1 to 2 year old child routinely puts hands, food, and objects into the mouth. Loose paint flakes on a feeding plate will almost certainly be ingested along with food. This poses a foreign body ingestion risk and, depending on flake size, a potential choking hazard. Second, chemical hazard and possible CPSIA non-compliance. This is a children’s product intended for children 12 and under, and in practice used by children well under 3 years old, and it is also a food-contact article. Under the CPSIA, the surface coating must not exceed 90 ppm lead, the substrate must not exceed 100 ppm total lead, and applicable phthalate limits must be met. The manufacturer or importer is required to issue a Children’s Product Certificate, or CPC, based on third-party testing from a CPSC-accepted laboratory. The fact that the coating is failing and detaching during normal, intended use by a toddler raises serious questions about whether the coating was properly formulated and adhesion-tested, whether valid third-party testing and a current CPC actually exist for this specific product, and whether the detached paint flakes contain lead, cadmium, or other heavy metals that a young child is now at risk of ingesting directly or through food contact. Third, vulnerable user population. Young children are significantly more susceptible to harm from heavy metal exposure than adults, and there is no safe level of lead exposure for a child this age. A children’s feeding product whose coating fails in the hands of its intended user is exactly the kind of product the CPSIA framework is designed to prevent from reaching the market. No injury has occurred and my child is not currently showing any symptoms. I stopped using the plate immediately upon noticing the paint loss and am returning it to Target. I am filing this report so that CPSC is aware of a potential compliance failure in a children’s food-contact product sold at a major national retailer, so that the responsible manufacturer or importer is notified and required to respond, and so that other families who may have purchased the same product through Target are protected before a child actually ingests paint flakes or suffers heavy metal exposure.

   Model

   Target Corporation

   UPC

   1 99268 79874 0

   Bought from

   Target

   Bought

   Apr 9, 2026, about then

   Where

   Minnetonka, Minnesota: Home/Apartment/Condominium

   Who was involved

   Unspecified

   The reporter’s relation to them

   Unspecified

   As this report names them

   Brand Pillowfort, made or sold by Target

   How badly, in CPSC’s words

   Incident, No Injury

CPSC’s disclaimer

Sources