Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle of Los Angeles ruled Wednesday that Starbucks Corporation and other coffee sellers must put a cancer warning on coffee sold in California. Judge Berle, in his decision, said that the “defendants failed to satisfy their burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that consumption of coffee confers a benefit to human health”.
Council for Education and Research on Toxics (CERT) had sued Starbucks and about 90 coffee retailers in 2010 on grounds of a Californian law violation and demanded fines as high as $2,500 for every person exposed to a certain chemical in the defendants’ coffee since 2002.
The chemical, acrylamide, is a carcinogen and the law requires companies to warn consumers of products which contain carcinogens, however, consumers are not being made aware of the high levels of acrylamide in brewed coffee.
Starbucks failed the first phase of a trial that happened afterward as they were not able to show that the acrylamide in their coffee was below the cancer-causing level. And they also failed to show proof of an “alternative” acrylamide risk level that is satisfactory in the second phase of the trial.
Following the Judge’s decision, Starbucks has declined to comment and refers reporters to a statement given by the National Coffee Association (NCA) which stated that the industry was considering an appeal and further legal actions. The statement also said “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”.
Most of the defendants had already agreed to add the cancer warning and paying millions in fines before the Wednesday decision.
Starbucks and other defendants have until April 10 to file objections to this decision.
