New specifications around jute bags in food packaging aim to keep mineral oil contamination out of your morning brew.
BY BHAVI PATEL
BARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE
Featured photo by Diego Catto
What to know:
- The European Coffee Federation and European Cocoa Association have replaced a 28-year-old standard with new specifications that require direct testing for MOSH and MOAH contaminants in jute bags used to transport coffee and cocoa
- The updated guidelines require food-grade materials throughout jute bag production, standardized testing methods, and stricter contamination controls to reduce the risk of mineral oil contamination entering the coffee supply chain
- While the EU has not yet established coffee-specific MOAH limits, the coffee industry will use the new cocoa-based standards as a reference to improve packaging safety until dedicated regulations are introduced
Coffee lovers obsess over origin, roast profile, and extraction, but rarely think about what the beans traveled in. That is changing. The European Coffee Federation (ECF) and the European Cocoa Association (ECA) have jointly published a new Industry Specification for jute bags and jute yarns used as food-contact packaging in cocoa and coffee supply chains. The move replaces a nearly three-decade-old standard and responds to growing scientific concern over mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbons (MOAH) and mineral oil saturated hydrocarbons (MOSH), migrating from packaging into the food it carries.
Out with the old, in with the new
For 28 years, jute bag production for cocoa, coffee, and shelled nuts operated under IJO98/01, a standard adopted by the International Jute Organisation in 1998. This older framework relied on proxy-based criteria that could not adequately detect or control MOAH contamination. Improved analytical technology has since exposed that gap. The new specification does not simply tighten the old rules; it replaces the underlying testing logic with direct MOSH and MOAH measurement, aligning the industry with where food safety science and EU regulation actually stand today.
What’s in the bag (besides coffee)
The specification sets out four practical pillars. It establishes chemical and organoleptic criteria for jute bags and yarns in food-contact use, including direct MOSH and MOAH limits. It requires every substance used in production, from batching oils to emulsifiers, lubricants, and printing inks, to be food-grade and safe for contact with food. It introduces standardized sampling and testing procedures aligned with EU Joint Research Centre analytical guidelines, laying out contamination control and segregation requirements across production and handling. Together, these criteria give exporters, roasters, and regulators a shared, testable definition of what “clean” jute actually means.
Coffee’s borrowed blueprint
Here is the interesting part for coffee specifically: No EU regulation currently sets coffee-specific MOAH limits. The ECF says the specification still serves as a solid preliminary reference for coffee, given the structural similarities between the cocoa and coffee supply chains. In effect, coffee is borrowing cocoa’s stricter, more current safety framework until dedicated coffee rules arrive. Research from the Joint Cocoa Research Fund has already identified jute sacking, along with storage conditions and transport time, as a critical contamination entry point in the supply chain, which helps explain why packaging integrity has become a genuine safety issue rather than a technicality.
This specification will not change how your espresso tastes tomorrow morning, but it addresses a quiet, structural risk in how green coffee travels from farm to roaster. By replacing outdated proxy testing with direct MOSH and MOAH measurement, and by giving coffee a credible interim standard to lean on, the ECF and ECA have closed a gap that analytical science had already exposed. For an industry that prizes traceability and purity from crop-to-cup, cleaning up the sack itself is a logical, overdue step, and one worth watching as EU regulation continues to evolve around it.
Bhavi Patel is a food writer focusing on coffee and tea, and a brand-building specialist with a background in dairy technology and an interest in culinary history and sensory perception of food.
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