Heavy Metals & Mycotoxins In Coffee

We recently sent our year-round offerings to a lab specializing in food safety testing. The purpose of this was to enrich our existing quality control practices by analyzing each coffee for heavy metal contaminants (like lead, cadmium, arsenic, and mercury) and certain mycotoxins (toxic compounds resulting from mold exposure at some stage of production).

These contaminants are sometimes found in food and beverage products and can be hazardous to long-term health through bioaccumulation (buildup in the body over time as substances are absorbed faster than they are eliminated).

First things first, the results - all of the coffees in our Mainstay lineup have been tested and we're proud to share that no heavy metals or mycotoxins were detected in our coffees. This supports what we already believed to be true, that specialty coffee is quite low in these compounds, especially by comparison with other common food and beverage products.

In coffee production, quality best practices are generally in harmony with food safety best practices - selective picking, equipment cleanliness, and careful drying all benefit flavor while eliminating vectors for microbial contamination. To ensure this, we buy coffees with a target range of 10-12% moisture (an ideal range for flavor quality, but below the danger zone for microbial growth) and .55-.60 water activity (a measure of how much of that moisture is actually “available,” or not bound to other compounds).

Less information is broadly accessible with respect to heavy metal contaminants in coffee, although the studies we have read seem to indicate that contamination of soil and plant vegetation is more likely to contain detectable levels than the seeds themselves. (Source 1, Source 2)

Still, we wanted to back up these assumptions with objective data. We were pleased to see that the reports showed that the mycotoxins and heavy metals tested were not just within their safe limits for consumption, but below their detectable threshold completely.