Judge rules that coffee sellers in California must have cancer warning label

According to Reuters, Starbucks and other coffee sellers must put a cancer warning on coffee sold in California, a Los Angeles judge has ruled. A not-for-profit group filed a lawsuit in 2010 against some 90 coffee retailers, including Starbucks, on grounds they were violating a California law requiring companies to warn consumers of chemicals in their products that could cause cancer.

One of those chemicals is acrylamide, a by-product of roasting coffee beans that is present in high levels in brewed coffee. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle said that Starbucks and other companies had failed to show there was no significant risk from a carcinogen produced in the coffee roasting process, court documents showed.

The lawsuit calls for fines as large as $2,500 per person for every exposure to the chemical since 2002 at the defendants’ shops in California. Any civil penalties, which will be decided in a third phase of the trial, could be huge in California, which has a population of nearly 40 million.

Starbucks lost the first phase of the trial in which it failed to show the level of acrylamide in coffee was below that which would pose a significant risk of cancer. In the second phase of the trial, defendants failed to prove there was an acceptable “alternative” risk level for the carcinogen, court documents showed.

Starbucks and other defendants have until April 10 to file objections to the decision.

In response to the ruling, the National Coffee Association (NCA) released the following statement: “Cancer warning labels on coffee would be misleading. The U.S. government’s own Dietary Guidelines state that coffee can be part of a healthy lifestyle. The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that coffee does not cause cancer. Study after study has provided evidence of the health benefits of drinking coffee, including longevity.

Reuters article

NCA statement (pdf)