The invoice from Eurofins came in at $398.42.
That covered two assays on one sample of one batch of our green decaf. Ochratoxin A by LC-MS/MS at $119.74. Aflatoxins B1 through G2 by USP 561 Method 3 at $278.68. Two compounds families. One lot. Roughly four hundred dollars before any of the green ever got to the roaster.
We are publishing the number because the cost is the explanation. Most coffee brands have never tested a single bag they have sold. The math is part of why. The rest of why is in this post.
The unit economics of testing
The retail price of a specialty coffee bag in 2026 runs between $18 and $28 in the United States, with most third-wave roasters clustered around $22. The cost of goods on that bag, for a small-to-mid-sized roaster, is roughly $7 to $10. Margin pays for packaging, labor, fulfillment, marketing, and the operating overhead of a coffee company.
A lot of green coffee, depending on origin and grade, runs between $4 and $9 per pound at landed cost. A small roaster might buy 100 to 500 pounds of a given lot. A $400 testing fee on a 200-pound lot adds $2 per pound of finished retail product. That is significant on a bag selling for $22.
A larger roaster buying 5,000 pounds amortizes the same $400 over a much bigger volume. The same test costs eight cents per pound. Negligible.
This is one of the reasons mycotoxin testing has historically been a feature of either very large industrial coffee operations (who test for regulatory compliance, particularly for EU export) or premium-positioned specialty roasters who can defend the cost as a category differentiator. The middle of the market, where most coffee is bought and sold, has neither the regulatory pressure nor the marketing payoff to justify the line item.
This is changing, slowly. Specialty coffee analytical labs are bringing per-sample costs down as their volume grows. Per-sample prices that were $600 to $800 five years ago are now in the $300 to $500 range. The trajectory is favorable. The current state is what it is.
The other reason most brands don’t test: nobody asks
Cost is half the story. The other half is incentive.
There is no regulatory requirement in the United States to test coffee for mycotoxins. The FDA monitors aflatoxins in some food categories but has not set an enforceable limit for coffee. The Specialty Coffee Association has voluntary guidance but no audit mechanism. Customers, until recently, have not been asking the question on retail buying decisions.
When the cost is significant and the demand signal is weak, the rational response is to not commission the test. This is how most of the supply chain has operated for decades. It is not a conspiracy. It is unit economics meeting incentive structure.
The shift over the last five years has been customer-side. Biohacker-coffee marketing made the question legible. Specialty coffee customers who care about provenance started asking about testing. The pressure is starting to push upward through the supply chain. Importers are getting asked. Brokers are getting asked. The bigger roasters are getting asked. Slowly, the answer “we don’t test” is becoming uncomfortable in conversations it never used to come up in.
We are part of that pressure. So is every other brand that publishes lab results. So is every customer who reads a transparency page before they buy.
What you actually get for the $400
The invoice line items, for the curious.
QA21A, Aflatoxins, USP 561 Method 3 (Modified). $278.68. This is the United States Pharmacopeia’s reference method for aflatoxin determination. It uses immunoaffinity column cleanup followed by high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection. The method is validated for botanical and food matrices and is the standard regulatory assay in the United States. The price reflects the cleanup chemistry and the chromatographic separation, both of which require trained technicians and accredited instruments.
QA11H, Ochratoxin A in Green Coffee by LC-MS/MS. $119.74. LC-MS/MS is liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. The “tandem” part means two stages of mass selection, which is why it is the gold-standard for low-concentration compound identification. The Eurofins internal method for green coffee uses Ochratoxin A’s specific mass-to-charge transitions for identification. The price is lower than the aflatoxin assay because the sample preparation is simpler and the runtime is shorter.
Total: $398.42 plus shipping the sample to the lab.
That is what it costs to know, on one bag of green coffee, with regulator-grade certainty, whether two of the most common coffee contaminant families are present above the detection limit. For our most recent batch, both came in below detection. The Eurofins report ID is AR-25-QA-100167-01. We covered the methodology and the result in our pillar post on mold testing.
Why we publish the invoice as well as the result
Because the result without the cost is incomplete information.
A brand publishing a single “non-detectable” result without context is asking customers to trust the testing infrastructure without showing them what that infrastructure costs. The $400 figure is the part of the story that explains why most brands do not have a result to publish. It is also the part that demonstrates this is a real commercial commitment, not a marketing claim with a graphic designer behind it.
If we are going to be one of the brands that tests, we are going to be transparent about what testing costs us, what it tests for, and what the limits of any single test are. We covered the limits in the pillar post. The cost is here.
Where this goes from here
Specialty coffee analytical labs are scaling up. Per-batch testing programs are becoming available at the kind of pricing where a brand serious about transparency can build the cost into the bag without breaking the unit economics. We are moving in that direction. So is a growing minority of the specialty coffee category.
By 2030, we expect every premium coffee brand worth its price to publish testing data the way wine producers publish vintage notes and laboratory analyses. The category will divide cleanly between the brands that show their work and the brands that hope you don’t ask. We are betting customers care more about the former than the marketing world has historically given them credit for.
Until then: one batch tested, $398.42 spent, two negative results. Receipt available on request.
If you want a decaf that has been through the lab and the results stand up, Blueprint is the most-tested in our lineup.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost to test coffee for mycotoxins? At a major accredited laboratory like Eurofins, a single sample tested for Ochratoxin A by LC-MS/MS and the four aflatoxins by USP 561 Method 3 currently runs approximately $400 in 2025-2026 pricing. Smaller specialty coffee labs may price slightly lower; full panels including pesticides and heavy metals scale upward from there.
Why don’t most coffee brands test for mycotoxins? Three reasons: cost (roughly $400 per lot adds up at scale), lack of regulatory requirement in the United States, and historically low customer-side demand signal. Larger industrial operations test for EU export compliance. Some premium specialty brands test as a differentiator. The middle of the market has not historically had the pressure or the budget to justify the line item.
Is the lab testing reliable? Tests run at ISO/IEC 17025-accredited laboratories using validated methods (LC-MS/MS, USP 561, AOAC) are admissible as regulatory evidence and considered the standard for food contaminant testing globally. Heist’s testing was done at Eurofins Central Analytical Laboratories under ISO 17025 accreditation.
Does testing one batch prove the brand’s coffee is safe? A single test result indicates one batch was below detection limits at one point in time. A rolling per-batch testing program provides much stronger ongoing assurance. The industry is moving from one-off testing toward continuous testing programs; brands that commit to the latter will be more trustworthy than brands that commit to the former.
What to read next
- Is Your Decaf Tested for Mold? Most Aren’t.. The pillar post with our full methodology and result.
- What “Mycotoxin Free Coffee” Actually Means. The precise language to look for and the marketing claims to discount.
- Ochratoxin A: The Coffee Toxin Nobody Talks About. A deeper read on the most common mycotoxin in coffee.
No Curfews is the editorial dispatch from Heist, a coffee company that thinks the second half of the day deserves better. We publish lab results, sources, and the occasional opinion. Join the list if this is the kind of thing you want in your inbox.