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In late 2023, a group of environmental and health nonprofits petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to ban the use of methylene chloride, a chemical sometimes used in coffee decaffeination. In the years since, the proposal has slowly worked its way through the FDA’s system, and we may now be getting closer to a resolution.
Methylene chloride is one of the methods used to decaffeinate coffee (the process, in which the solvent binds to and removes caffeine molecules, is sometimes known as the European method). Many of the world’s largest companies, including Starbucks, sell decaffeinated coffee using this method.
The substance’s use in coffee has repeatedly come under fire from groups such as the Clean Label Project (CLP), which have filed lawsuits against Starbucks and other brands for allegedly marketing their decaf products as “pure” despite testing showing trace amounts of methylene chloride.
Critics claim that methylene chloride is carcinogenic and should be banned from use in food production. The FDA currently allows its presence in food products up to 10 parts per million. However, the residue levels in decaf coffee are generally much lower—even CLP’s own decaf testing found residues of only 90 parts per billion.
The FDA has requested public comment on the subject twice, with the latest call asking ”what practical considerations food manufacturers would have in phasing out impacted uses.” This could hint at an impending ruling, and a full ban would affect many U.S. coffee companies that sell methylene chloride-decaffeinated coffee. However, some have already begun to move toward alternative approaches, such as the Swiss Water Process.
The National Coffee Association opposed the petition when it was originally published. The trade group submitted a comment in defense of the chemical, noting that “removing methylene chloride as an agent permitted to decaffeinate coffee will have legal, supply-chain and human health consequences.” On its website, the NCA wrote that the European Method of decaffeination “is safe according to rigorous standards set by FDA, the European Food Safety Authority, and other food safety authorities around the world.”
Read more on the decaf debate from Daily Coffee News here.
Photo by Tanya Barrow on Unsplash
