New Product Labeling Requirements for Coffee
[This post was written by Wendel Rosen environmental attorney Wendy Manley.]
Coffee drinkers were pleasantly surprised recently to learn their daily beverage may afford a number of health benefits. The beverage contains antioxidants and nutrients, and may protect against Type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and liver cancer. Make that a double latte, please.
NEWS FLASH:
Warning: coffee contains acrylamide, a chemical known by the State of California to cause cancer.
What just happened?
In short, after eight years of litigation, a California court determined that coffee must bear a warning under the state’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, otherwise known as Proposition 65 or “Prop 65.”
Prop 65 was enacted by voters in 1986 with the objective of eliminating toxic chemicals in consumer products by requiring a warning before exposing a person in California to a chemical listed by the State as causing cancer or reproductive toxicity. If your product contains a listed chemical, it may need a Prop 65 Warning.
While there have been some success stories – trichloroethylene out of correction fluid and lead out of wine bottle caps, jewelry, brass faucets, calcium supplements and ceramic ware, for example – Prop 65 has spawned a cottage industry of citizen enforcers, some of which seek to safeguard human health, others of which are motivated by the reward of penalties and attorney fees.
There are more than 900 chemicals on the Prop 65 List that cause cancer or reproductive toxicity or both. In a few cases, the state has set a “safe harbor” level below which no warning is required. Plaintiffs can initiate an enforcement suit based on a lab test showing the presence of a listed chemical, and the burden falls to the defendant to prove the exposure poses “no significant risk,” which is one excess case of cancer in an exposed population of 100,000 assuming a 70 year lifetime of exposure at that level. The risk assessment needed to establish the no significant risk level (NSRL) is complicated, expensive, and vulnerable to attack in a courtroom. Consequently, the vast majority of cases are settled regardless of the merits of the claim.
Acrylamide was added to the Proposition 65 list in 1990, but not discovered in food until 2002. Since that time, more than 650 Prop 65 claims have been brought for failure to warn about acrylamide in a wide range of food products, including french fries, potato chips, sweet potato chips, vegetable chips, hash browns, bread, bagels, English muffins, breakfast cereals, granola bars, animal crackers, ginger snap cookies, molasses, toasted almonds, black olives, and coffee.
A listed chemical is often times present as an ingredient or contaminant. In many cases, such as lead or cadmium in chocolate or seaweed, it is naturally occurring, and exempt from the Prop 65 warning. Acrylamide is unusual in that it is neither added to coffee nor does it occur naturally – it is created during roasting. Cooking at high temperatures, including frying, roasting and baking, transforms sugars and the amino acid asparagine into acrylamide through the Maillard reaction. Consequently, acrylamide is unavoidable in conventional coffee roasting techniques.
Back to the coffee case. In Council for Education and Research on Toxics v. Starbucks, defendants first argued and lost several defenses based on the NSRL, First Amendment and preemption by federal law. In the second phase of the trial, which concluded in January 2018, defendants argued a rarely utilized defense involving an Alternative Significant Risk Level (ASRL) based on considerations of public health. The regulations provide that “where chemicals in food are produced by cooking necessary to render food palatable or to avoid microbiological contamination,” considerations of public health allow for an ASRL.
The Coffee defendants’ risk assessment calculated an ASRL of 19 micrograms per day, which was an order of magnitude higher than the State’s established NSRL of 0.2 micrograms per day.
To their disappointment, the coffee producers failed to persuade the judge that the ASRL should apply. The court found their expert’s quantitative risk assessment deficient, analytical chemistry methods unacceptable, evidence of health benefits unpersuasive, and the minimum quantity of acrylamide necessary to render the coffee palatable unsubstantiated, among other things. In their objections to the proposed Order, the defendants took issue with a number of the court’s findings and regulatory interpretations. Although the plaintiff immediately filed a motion for permanent injunction, it is widely expected that some or all of the defendants, which total 91, will appeal.
Just as Yogi Berra famously said, it ain’t over till it’s over. If the case is appealed, it will likely be quite some time before we know whether a Prop 65 warning is required for acrylamide in coffee. If a warning is ultimately required, specific warning language may be developed for coffee. Meanwhile, high doses of acrylamide administered to rodents suggests acrylamide may cause cancer in humans, but questions still remain whether one can even drink enough coffee to raise the risk or whether the health benefits more than offset the potential risks.
Food producers investigating acrylamide in their products need to think more broadly, since furfural alcohol is also a Prop 65 chemical generated from the Malliard reaction during cooking. And the Prop 65 plaintiff’s bar knows about it.