Organic certification says nothing about mycotoxins. Ochratoxin A and the aflatoxins are made by moulds that grow when coffee dries too slowly or sits too damp, long after the farming decisions a certificate audits. An organic bean and a conventional bean are equally exposed. The only way to know what a particular lot carries is to have the green coffee screened at a laboratory.
Two separate questions, asked of the same bag, at two different points in its life.
What the seal covers
Organic certification audits farming. Permitted and prohibited inputs, buffer zones, a conversion period of roughly three years, records that an auditor can follow, and chain-of-custody rules for certified handlers after the farm gate.
Nowhere in that scope is anything measured in the bean. No sample is taken. No compound is quantified. Certification is a description of process, and mycotoxins are not a process, they are a biological event that happens to a crop when conditions allow it. What organic covers, and what specialty covers.
Mould is a moisture event, not a spraying event
Ochratoxin A is produced by certain Aspergillus and Penicillium moulds. The aflatoxins come mainly from Aspergillus flavus and its relatives. Both groups are ordinary organisms, present in soil and air almost everywhere, and both need the same thing to become a problem: moisture, warmth, and time.
The opportunities arrive after harvest. Cherries drying too slowly on a patio in wet weather. A lot bagged above a safe moisture level. A humid warehouse. A container crossing the tropics with the wrong ventilation. Southeast Asian supply chains are exposed to this by climate, not by carelessness, and the coffees we buy travel through exactly that climate.
Nothing in an organic certificate addresses any of it. Careful drying and dry storage do, and neither is a certified attribute. What ochratoxin A is. And the aflatoxins.
Does roasting deal with it
Partly, and not reliably enough to lean on.
Roasting reduces ochratoxin A. Published reductions vary widely with roast time and temperature, and a portion of the compound survives a normal roast. Aflatoxins are similarly reduced by heat rather than reliably removed. Brewing then leaves some of what remains behind in the grounds and the filter.
So the roast is a mitigation. It is not a control, because you cannot know what it reduced unless you knew what was there to begin with. The control is the green bean.
What the numbers mean, and what they do not
For finished coffee sold in the European Union, the ochratoxin A limit is 3 micrograms per kilogram in roasted coffee and 5 in instant. There is no EU limit for aflatoxins in coffee at all.
Those figures describe a finished product. They are not the right yardstick for a green-bean screen, which is why we do not quote them against our own results. Our results are reported the way a laboratory reports them: not detected, against a stated limit of detection. Not zero, which no instrument can demonstrate. Nothing found by an accredited method capable of finding it.
What we test, and what we will not claim
Green coffee is screened before roasting at independent laboratories accredited to ISO/IEC 17025. Ochratoxin A. Aflatoxins B1, B2, G1 and G2. Pesticide residues. Each report is published on the page of the coffee it covers, as the lot clears. Reports currently cover three of our coffees, with more clearing over time. The ledger of what has been tested.
We do not say that every batch is tested. It would be the easiest sentence in the world to write and it would not be true.
None of this means coffee is dangerous. Dietary exposure to these compounds has been studied for decades and coffee sits inside it as one contributor among many, at levels regulators have set limits around. The reason to test is not fear. It is that a claim you can check is worth more than a claim you cannot. The same logic, applied to pesticides.
The short answers
Does organic coffee have fewer mycotoxins?
No. Organic certification audits farming practice and never measures anything in the bean. Mycotoxins form during drying, storage and transit, so certified and conventional coffee are equally exposed.
What are mycotoxins in coffee?
Compounds produced by moulds, chiefly ochratoxin A and the aflatoxins. The moulds are common in soil and air, and they grow on coffee when moisture, warmth and time come together after harvest.
How is mycotoxin contamination avoided?
Drying to a safe moisture level, dry and ventilated storage, unhurried but not slow transit, and laboratory screening of the green bean before it is roasted.
Does roasting destroy mycotoxins?
Partly. Roasting reduces ochratoxin A by amounts that vary with time and temperature, and does not reliably remove it. It is a mitigation rather than a control.
What does not detected mean on a report?
That an accredited method capable of finding the compound did not find it, down to a stated limit of detection. It is a precise statement, and a more honest one than zero.
