An Update from Alexander Muhr, CEO of Hallstein Water

To our clients and community,

On May 18th, I wrote to you directly about a third-party lab report posted by Oasis App, with Light Labs listed as the client of record at IEH Analytical Laboratories, that reported microplastic particles in a sample identified as Hallstein. I told you we were taking it seriously, that we had commissioned independent testing at two accredited U.S. laboratories, and that whatever the results showed, they would go on our website.

The results are in. I'm sharing them now, exactly as promised.

What the Independent Testing Found

Two accredited U.S. laboratories tested sealed packages of Hallstein water, both glass bottles and 5-gallon jugs, pulled at random from our distribution center:

• EMSL Analytical (Cinnaminson, NJ) — Using FTIR microscopy under ISO 24187:2023 protocols: zero microplastics detected. [View Report →]
• Rogers Imaging (Natick, MA) — Using SEM/EDS and Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis sensitive down to 50 nanometers: zero nano or microplastics detected. [View Report →]

The Original Report

The original IEH report is also linked here in full. [View Report →] We have spent the past weeks examining it carefully and consulting with analytical chemists. Several methodological questions remain unanswered.

The sample description field on the report is blank. No lot number is recorded. The sample passed through at least one intermediary before reaching the laboratory, and the chain-of-custody documentation between the point of acquisition and the lab has not been provided to us despite requests on May 7th, May 15th and again on June 3rd.

Roughly 90% of the particles reported in the IEH analysis fall into four polymer types: polypropylene, PTFE, polyamide, and rubber. Those polymers are consistent with a range of equipment-contact materials, including ones common to analytical laboratories themselves. But IEH's own procedural blank for this analysis returned none of these polymers. The laboratory's handling did not introduce them. The polymers were on or in the sample by the time it reached the lab.

The one polymer that does appear in our closure system is polyethylene, in various forms. The IEH analysis detected zero polyethylene particles in the sample. The polymer profile in the reported sample, in other words, does not match Hallstein as packaged.

We are not saying IEH performed the analysis incorrectly. We are saying that the questions about what happened to the sample before it reached the laboratory are unresolved, and they are unresolved because the documentation that would resolve them has not been shared.

What's Still in Progress

We are also running analysis at the aquifer source itself in Austria, at a leading European research institute. Source-level testing is rarely done commercially. When those results come back, they go on our website. No editing. No delay.

We are continuing to review our own process, every step of it, from aquifer to sealed bottle. I said in May that if something is getting in that shouldn't be, it's ours to find and fix. That work is ongoing, and we will tell you when there is something to tell you.

Where We Stand in This Field

Hallstein has been in this work for over twenty years. We rely on ongoing relationships with hydrogeologists and water scientists whose research informs how we operate, what we test for, and how we evaluate what comes back. What we publish is rooted in that science, not in marketing.

We've been publishing our own microplastics and PFAS results for years, back when hardly any water company was. Nobody made us. We did it because if you're drinking something every day, you should be able to see exactly what's in it. Every one of those reports is still public — [Hallstein Water Quality Page]. The Rogers Imaging analysis we commissioned goes further: it tests into the nanoplastic range, below 1 micrometer, into territory that commercial food and beverage testing rarely enters. When this round of testing came back, we did what we always do. It is on the website, in full, the same way as everything before it, whatever the data showed.

On Accountability in This Space

A lot of people reading this likely don't fully trust the consumer ecosystem globally, and we understand why. The agencies that are supposed to protect them have been slow, captured, or missing in action on enough issues that skepticism about the whole structure is a reasonable place to land. That skepticism is part of why platforms like Oasis exist, and we don't dismiss it. We share it more than people might assume.

But we want to be clear about where Hallstein sits inside that picture. Consumer packaged goods companies specifically in the United States operate under FDA regulation and consumer-litigation exposure. If we mishandle a test, misrepresent a label, or distort our data, we are fined, sued, and held accountable on the public record. That accountability is imperfect. We know it is. But it exists. Brands that fail standards face consequences, and it’s a reality we live inside everyday.

However, the platforms that critique us are not, as a category, held to equivalent standards. There is no regulatory floor, no certification requirement, and limited public-record accountability for the methodology used to produce consumer-facing reports. That asymmetry is not necessarily a flaw. Different roles can have different oversight structures. But it raises the bar for the methodological rigor those platforms should hold themselves to. When you publish analytical results to a consumer audience making decisions based on them, you can't operate at a lower standard than the one you're applying to others.

Microplastics testing in particular is technically demanding. It requires qualified staff, validated methodology, controlled sample handling, and documented chain of custody. It is not casual work. When it's performed without those foundations, the cost falls in two places. It falls on the brands whose products and reputations are at stake, many of whom are small, family-owned operations whose entire livelihood depends on the trust they have built with their customers. And it falls on consumers themselves, who become less able to distinguish credible information from non-credible, and eventually less able to trust any of it.

We are fortunate to be in a position where we can commission independent testing at multiple accredited laboratories and publish the results in full. Many of the brands we have heard from who have been affected by similar situations do not have that ability. That is the actual systemic problem in this space, and it is not a problem any single brand can solve alone.

What we want from a consumer-protection ecosystem is the same thing our customers want from us. Rigor about methodology. Transparency about how conclusions are reached. Accountability when something is wrong. Those standards should apply to everyone publishing about consumer products, including us, and including the platforms reporting on us.

A word on Oasis App directly

Hallstein has no financial relationship with Oasis. We have never paid them and they have never paid us. We have no commercial reason to support or oppose them, and our customers should know that whatever follows is made from that posture.

We have been in dialogue with Oasis since they were a small platform with a limited audience. They highlighted our brand in their early work, and the relationship in those early years was constructive on both sides. We share their stated mission. Consumers deserve credible information about what they're buying, and the brands they support should welcome scrutiny rather than fear it. We don't disagree with what Oasis says it is trying to do.

We disagree, with the benefit of the past several weeks of analysis, with how it is being done. The chain-of-custody documentation we requested three times has not been provided. The substantive communication we used to have with Oasis is no longer there. And we know we are not the only brand currently in this position; several other consumer brands have publicly, privately and legally have raised similar methodology concerns about Oasis publications. We are not going to comment on those situations or speculate about them. We can speak only on our own.

Transparency is a two-way standard. We publish our full testing in good faith. We expect the same from the platforms that publish about us. If we are being asked to release our methodology, our sample handling, and our results, then a platform reporting on us should be willing to release theirs in equal measure. To date, that has not happened.

Documentation requests are unanswered. The methodology questions we surfaced above remain unresolved. A working relationship that was once constructive has deteriorated. Other brands are raising the same kinds of concerns. Taken together, that is enough. We cannot in good faith continue to recommend Oasis App as a credible reference for consumer decisions about Hallstein, or about microplastics in bottled water more broadly, at this time.

That position is not closed. If Oasis and its partners provide the documentation we have asked for, and the methodology questions raised by our independent analysis can be addressed, we are willing to revisit it.

Our offer to engage constructively remains open. So does our interest in seeing the standards in this field improve.

We will say plainly what that improvement has to look like. It starts with the platforms holding themselves to the same standard of rigor they ask of the brands they critique. It means a documented chain of custody on every sample analyzed. It means qualified analytical staff making analytical judgments, not data aggregation, not AI automation without oversight, not the methodological shortcuts that hollow out the credibility of careful work. It means publishing the methodology behind a result alongside the result itself, so the people reading it can evaluate the analysis the same way the brand being analyzed has to. And it means responding to documentation requests from the brands you publish about, not because those brands deserve special access, but because no analytical result is credible if the analyst will not show the work.

Those are not unreasonable expectations. They are the same expectations our customers hold us to, every day. They should apply equally to every party making public claims about consumer products. They are the bar we are holding ourselves to in everything we publish today, including this public statement. We hope to see these parties meet them.

Education, Not Alarm

Microplastics are a real and serious topic. So are pH, mineral balance, source protection, and bottling integrity. Anyone choosing what to drink every day deserves to understand all of it, not just the headlines.

Fear is not a substitute for information. It doesn't serve the consumer, it doesn't serve the brands, it doesn't serve the broader work of consumer protection. People who are alarmed without being informed make worse decisions, not better ones. They also lose the ability to tell the next real concern apart from the last one that didn't hold up. That is how trust in this field erodes, and it is happening already.

We have built our brand on the assumption that consumers can handle the truth about what's in their water, and the work of evaluating it themselves. A number on a screen with no methodology behind it is not information. It is a claim. There is a difference, and it matters.

In the coming weeks we are starting an educational program to help our community understand microplastics testing methodology. What results mean. What makes a test valid. What a clean chain of custody actually looks like. How to read a lab report on your own. Our interest isn't in telling people what to think. It's in giving people the tools to evaluate claims themselves, rather than relying on a single number on a screen. Empowered consumers make better decisions than alarmed ones. This is the field we work in. We have a responsibility to make it legible.

The Mission Continues

Hallstein has one job: get the water to you exactly the way it is in the aquifer in Austria, without adding or taking anything away. That's still the whole company. 

Thank you for your continued trust. It's not something we take lightly.

Alexander Muhr CEO, Hallstein Water

All laboratory reports and our full quality testing history are available at [hallsteinwater.com/quality]