Bean Reaper
Lot #12983284 — Roasted June 24, 2025
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Analysis report FCID 22210A-1 · issued July 14, 2025
We sent a bag of our roasted coffee to a laboratory that has no stake in the answer, and asked them to look for the things nobody puts on a label. Here is everything that came back, including the parts that are less impressive than the headline.
What we sent
One bag of roasted coffee — Lot #12983284, roasted 06/24/2025, sampled 06/27/2025. Not green beans, not a cherry-picked sample from a different harvest. The same roasted coffee that goes into bags.
Who tested it
FoodChain ID Testing in Chantilly, Virginia. They are accredited to ISO/IEC 17025 through PJLA and recognised under the ILAC Mutual Recognition Arrangement — the boring bureaucratic way of saying an outside body audits their methods and their results are recognised internationally. They do not work for us, and they get paid the same whether we pass or fail. The report is electronically signed by their Laboratory Director, Thomas Scott.
Testing was commissioned by Roastify, LLC in Bend, Oregon — the licensed facility that sources and roasts our coffee.
Read the reports yourself
These are the laboratory’s own documents, reproduced in full — not our summary of them.
Heavy metals & mycotoxins — FCID 22210A-1 (PDF, 2 pages)
Yeast & mold culture — FCID 22210A-3 (PDF, 1 page)
What came back
Heavy metals
Four metals, run under FDA Method EAM v4.7. All four came back below the reporting limit.
| Metal | Result | Reporting limit |
|---|---|---|
| Arsenic (As) | <0.010 ppm | LOQ 0.010 ppm |
| Cadmium (Cd) | <0.010 ppm | LOQ 0.010 ppm |
| Mercury (Hg) | <0.010 ppm | LOQ 0.010 ppm |
| Lead (Pb) | <0.010 ppm | LOQ 0.010 ppm |
This is the strongest part of the report and we will say so plainly: these are clean numbers, comfortably under the limits, on a sensitive method.
Mycotoxins
Nineteen assays under FDA method v1.0 (2017) — ochratoxin A, the full aflatoxin group (B1, B2, G1, G2), deoxynivalenol and its acetyl and glucoside forms, the fumonisins, T-2 and HT-2, zearalenone, nivalenol, sterigmatocystin and patulin.
Every one came back Not Detected.
What “Not Detected” actually means
Here is the part most brands leave out.
“Not detected” is not the same as “zero.” It means the lab’s method did not see the compound at or above a specific threshold, and that threshold differs by compound. For ochratoxin A — the mycotoxin people actually care about in coffee — the limit of quantification on this method is 1 ppm. The European Union’s regulatory limit for roasted coffee is 0.003 ppm. So this method is looking with a much coarser net than the tightest standard in the world uses.
That does not make the result meaningless. It rules out gross contamination, which is the failure mode that actually shows up in badly dried, badly stored commodity coffee. But we are not going to print “mycotoxin-free” on a bag on the back of it, because this report does not say that, and we would rather you trust the next thing we tell you.
We have asked our roasting partner whether the lab can run a low-limit ochratoxin method in parts per billion. When we get it, we will post it here, whatever it says.
What this report does not cover
- Mold and yeast cultures. Screened separately from this panel, on its own report — FCID 22210A-3, issued 18 July 2025, same lot and same sampling date: <10 CFU/g by method AOAC 997.02.
- SCA cupping score. Our beans are specialty grade, scoring 80 or above on the Specialty Coffee Association’s 100-point scale, but that is a cupping assessment and it is not part of this chemical analysis.
- Pesticide residue. Not tested in this panel.
We are chasing paperwork on the other two. It will go up here when it lands.
What this covers, and what it does not
Coffee is a crop. Every harvest is different, every lot is different, and a certificate from one lot is evidence about that lot — not a standing guarantee for every bag we have ever shipped. We are not going to pretend otherwise.
So here is our rule: we publish the analysis we actually hold, with the lot number and the date on the front, and we hide neither. If a newer one exists, it goes up. If the most recent one starts looking old, that is visible to you at a glance rather than buried — and you are welcome to email and ask what has changed.
A brand that posts one certificate, strips the date off it, and leaves it up for three years is not being transparent. It is decorating.
Results apply to the lot tested. Sampling and sample information are the responsibility of the requester. This report must be reproduced in its entirety; reproduction of any part requires approval from the laboratory. Want the report covering the roast date printed on your bag? Email hello@thebeanreaper.com and we will send it.