BlogWhy we test

Why we test

Your coffee is a crop.

Most people think of coffee as something that happens in a roaster. It doesn’t start there.

Gary BreckaFounder, The Ultimate Brew 4 min read
Ripe red and unripe green coffee cherries on the branch

It starts on a farm, as a fruit, on a plant that’s grown, treated, and harvested like any other crop.

Coffee grows in tropical climates, where heat and humidity mean pests are a pressure year-round. On conventional farms, the answer to that pressure is pesticides. And those residues don’t always stay in the field.

When researchers test conventionally grown green coffee beans, the raw beans before they’re roasted, they find pesticide residues.

Here’s why that matters more for coffee than for most foods. You don’t drink coffee occasionally. You drink it every morning, often more than once, for years. When I think about exposure, I don’t look at a single cup. I look at what repeats.

Something you put into your body every single day earns more scrutiny, not less.

So that’s where I started. If I was going to put my name on a coffee, it had to answer that question first.

The Ultimate Brew is organic. And I didn’t stop at the label: it’s tested for glyphosate.

From the lab report

Every lot. Independently tested.

The track runs out to the federal limit, then pulls back to what the laboratory found. Shorter means less was found.

  1. GlyphosateHerbicide residue, Sprouts lot
    0.05 mg/kgBelow limit5% of the federal tolerance

Glyphosate turns up in many grain and legume foods. Here’s where our result sits next to some of them.

For comparison

  1. Dry chickpeas, conventional

    up to 5,293 ppb

  2. Oat cereal

    up to 2,837 ppb

  3. Hummus

    up to 2,379 ppb

  4. Honey

    up to 653 ppb

  5. Bread

    up to 191 ppb

  6. The Ultimate Brew, Sprouts lot

    50 ppb

Comparison figures are the highest results reported by the Environmental Working Group for conventional chickpeas, hummus and oat cereal,3,4 a peer-reviewed study of honey5 and the Florida Department of Health for bread,6 not our own lab. Not every sample tested this high. Our result is from independent third-party laboratory testing of the lot on Sprouts shelves. The EPA tolerance for green coffee is set in 40 CFR § 180.364.2

What glyphosate is, and how it reaches coffee.

Glyphosate is the world’s most widely used weed killer,1 sprayed on crops to clear weeds and, on some grains, to dry them out before harvest. The EPA sets a legal tolerance for how much can remain on each kind of food; for green coffee it’s 1.0 mg/kg.2

Coffee isn’t typically sprayed with it directly, but trace amounts can drift in from nearby farmland or linger from prior land use, which is why a report can show a small amount, as ours does.

Two questions for any bag of coffee.

That gives you two questions to ask about any bag of coffee you buy, mine or anyone else’s:

  1. 01

    Is it organic?

    That tells you how it was grown.

    Ours: USDA Organic
  2. 02

    Is it tested?

    That tells you whether anyone checked.

    Ours: every lot, independently

If a brand can answer both, you’re in a very different place than most people standing in the coffee aisle.

The two questions aren’t the same. Our coffee is USDA Organic, and every lot is screened anyway, because residue can still reach organic coffee through drift from neighboring farms or pest control during storage and shipping. USDA Organic is a production and certification standard and not a guarantee of zero detectable residue.

How every lot is tested.

Testing is not a claim we make once. It is a process we repeat for every green-coffee lot and every production run.

  1. Step 01

    Source and select

    We qualify farms and green-coffee lots before purchase, favoring careful drying and storage that keep mold from taking hold at origin.

  2. Step 02

    Independent analysis

    Samples go to an independent third-party laboratory using AOAC and USP methods, the same methods used in food-safety science.

  3. Step 03

    Full-panel screening

    Every lot is screened for mycotoxins, heavy metals, pesticides and glyphosate. Not a single headline test, the full picture.

  4. Step 04

    Publish and release

    Results are published behind the QR code on your bag, exactly as they came back. A lot that does not clear our internal bar does not ship.

See everything we test for →
Gary Brecka at The Ultimate Human endcap in Sprouts, with The Ultimate Brew on the top shelf

Only at Sprouts

Right now, The Ultimate Brew is on the endcap at Sprouts, through October 27.

Thanks for finding us at Sprouts.

Medium Roast, Espresso and Dark Roast. USDA Organic, single-origin from Tolima, Colombia.

Find your Sprouts → Get first access → Shop now →
Gary Brecka’s signature

Gary BreckaFounder, The Ultimate Brew

Sources

  1. Benbrook CM. Trends in glyphosate herbicide use in the United States and globally. Environmental Sciences Europe, 2016;28(1):3. doi:10.1186/s12302-016-0070-0. Glyphosate is the most widely applied pesticide worldwide.
  2. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 40 CFR § 180.364, Glyphosate; tolerances for residues. Electronic Code of Federal Regulations. Sets a tolerance of 1.0 mg/kg for green coffee beans.
  3. Temkin AM, Naidenko O. EWG Tests of Hummus Find High Levels of Glyphosate Weedkiller. Environmental Working Group, July 2020. Highest conventional results: 5,293 ppb in a sample of dry chickpeas (the higher of two tests on that sample) and 2,379 ppb in hummus.
  4. Environmental Working Group. Roundup for Breakfast, Part 2: In New Tests, Weed Killer Found in All Kids' Cereals Sampled. October 2018. Highest result: 2,837 ppb, in an oat cereal.
  5. Chamkasem N, Vargo JD. Development and independent laboratory validation of an analytical method for the direct determination of glyphosate, glufosinate, and aminomethylphosphonic acid in honey by liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry. Journal of Regulatory Science, 2017;5(2):1-9. doi:10.21423/JRS-V05N02P001. Highest result: 653 ppb, in a honey sample from Iowa.
  6. Florida Department of Health. Exposing Bread Toxins: bread testing results. Healthy Florida First, February 2026. Highest result: 191 ppb, in a honey wheat bread (Florida reports glyphosate together with its breakdown product AMPA).