{"id":414500,"date":"2018-03-30T14:00:13","date_gmt":"2018-03-30T14:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=414500"},"modified":"2018-03-30T14:00:13","modified_gmt":"2018-03-30T14:00:13","slug":"judge-orders-starbucks-put-cancer-warnings-coffee-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2018\/03\/judge-orders-starbucks-put-cancer-warnings-coffee-california\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge orders Starbucks to put cancer warnings on coffee in California"},"content":{"rendered":"
Starbucks and other coffee sellers must put a cancer warning on coffee sold in California, a Los Angeles judge has ruled, possibly exposing the companies to millions of dollars in fines.<\/p>\n
A little-known not-for-profit group sued 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.<\/p>\n
One of those chemicals is acrylamide, a byproduct of roasting coffee beans that is present in high levels in brewed coffee.<\/p>\n
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle said in a decision dated Wednesday 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.<\/p>\n
Starbucks and other defendants have until April 10 to file objections to the decision.<\/p>\n
Starbucks declined to comment, referring reporters to a statement by the National Coffee Association (NCA) that said the industry was considering an appeal and further legal actions.<\/p>\n
\u201cCancer warning labels on coffee would be misleading. The U.S. government\u2019s own Dietary Guidelines state that coffee can be part of a healthy lifestyle,\u201d the NCA statement said.<\/p>\n
In his decision, Berle said: \u201cDefendants failed to satisfy their burden of proving by a preponderance of evidence that consumption of coffee confers a benefit to human health.\u201d<\/p>\n
Officials from Dunkin\u2019 Donuts, McDonald\u2019s, Peet\u2019s and other big coffee sellers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit was filed in 2010 by the Council for Education and Research on Toxics (CERT). It calls for fines as large as $2,500 per person for every exposure to the chemical since 2002 at the defendants\u2019 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.<\/p>\n
CERT\u2019s lawyer Raphael Metzger did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
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 \u201calternative\u201d risk level for the carcinogen, court documents showed.<\/p>\n
Several defendants in the case settled before Wednesday\u2019s decision, agreeing to post signage about the cancer-linked chemical and pay millions in fines, according to published reports.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Starbucks and other coffee sellers must put a cancer warning on coffee sold in California, a Los Angeles judge has ruled, possibly exposing the companies to millions of dollars in fines. A little-known not-for-profit group sued some 90 coffee retailers, including Starbucks, on grounds they were violating a California law requiring companies to warn consumers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":414501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[107],"tags":[9361,18338],"yoast_head":"\n