The Biggest Coffee Recalls In History

It's fair to say coffee is a pretty popular drink. People drink a staggering amount of coffee, and in the United States, nearly three-quarters of Americans drink it every single day, according to Drive Research. The booming coffee industry is showing no signs of slowing down, and today consumers have access to more choice than ever, with ground, instant, and canned coffee brands all fighting for your attention. However, the sheer size of the market and the amount of products out there mean that coffee recalls are both common and enormous. Although some coffee recalls have been fairly contained, others have involved staggering quantities, with millions of cans, bottles, or coffee bags being tracked down by manufacturers.

Plus, while coffee is generally seen as a pretty safe product, the reasons for recalling it have been anything but. Like other processed foods, coffee recalls have been issued as a result of contamination from foreign materials like plastic and metal, or by harmful toxins that could cause serious risk to health. Elsewhere, coffee products have had to be recalled due to manufacturing issues that might have caused harm to consumers. It turns out, the coffee world's a bit more dangerous than we thought.

Costco never does anything by halves, including its coffee. Its coffee products are famously stacked high and sold in bulk in its stores — but that means that when they're recalled, the numbers can be absolutely huge. Customers found this out the hard way in 2023, when a recall that will always haunt Costco was issued of approximately 2.7 million cans of its Kirkland Signature Colombian Cold Brew Coffee. The recall was issued as a result of a metal piece, specifically a bolt, making its way into one of the cans. Although it seems that there was just one rogue bolt hiding in a can somewhere, Costco couldn't take any risks, due to the significant choking hazard that this presented for its customers.

Like many Costco products, the cold brew cans weren't made by Costco itself. Instead, they were made by supplier Berner Foods, an Illinois-based company selling its products under the Kirkland brand name. The fact that Costco had been selling the cans of cold brew in over a dozen different states made things more complicated, as it meant that it had to put in the footwork across a huge patch of the country. 

If you've ever drunk a bit too much coffee, you'll know that the feeling is pretty uncomfortable. That's why so many of us like to mix up our regular caffeinated perfect cup of coffee with the decaf version. However, in March 2025, the risk of finding regular coffee in decaf-branded bags was very real. Massimo Zanetti Beverage USA had to issue a recall of its Our Family Traverse City Ground Coffee, after it had placed regular coffee in some of its regular packaging. The recall, which was announced by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (or FDA), didn't specify whether customers had drunk the product in question, and only mentioned that the recall was initiated by the company itself.

Massimo Zanetti Beverage USA had shipped almost 700 cases of the product, amounting to thousands of bags overall. It had sent the cases to 15 different states, and as it had reached both distribution centers and retail stores, there was every possibility that customers had bought some of it. While most people may just feel a little restless after drinking caffeinated coffee, for others the consequences are more severe. People with caffeine sensitivity may experience profound discomfort after drinking even a small amount of regular coffee, with headaches, anxiousness, insomnia, and nausea all possible.

We tend to think of botulism as only affecting canned foods, but it's entirely possible for the toxins that cause it to flourish in canned beverages too. Customers discovered this yet again in 2024, when a massive selection of canned coffee products had to be recalled due to botulism fears. Wisconsin-based Snapchill LLC issued a recall of all — yes, all — of its coffee products, after it discovered that the process it was using to make them wasn't filed with the FDA. As the administration requires this as part of its regulatory standards, the firm had to find and recall every single one of its items, despite there being no reports of illness of botulinum toxins in the food. We gotta say, we're pretty glad it took it seriously.

As for which products it had to recall, it was a long list. Hundreds of different products under dozens upon dozens of brand names were included as part of the recall. These items had been distributed through various avenues to customers and retailers alike, and the recall covered all use-by dates for the products too.

You know what we really don't want in our coffee? Plastic. It's not too much to ask, right? Well, it apparently was in 2021, when Black Rifle Coffee Company had sent out several tons of its coffee with plastic fragments potentially nestled in each bag. The company was forced to issue a hasty recall once the problem was discovered, hunting down hundreds of thousands of bags of its Mac V Whole Bean Coffee, which had been distributed through Tennessee.

The big problem with this recall was that the plastic fragments had ended up in bags of beans, as opposed to pre-ground coffee. Although the latter would have been kinda gross, any larger fragments would likely have been weeded out by your coffee filter or French press. With beans, though, the plastic was way more likely to be ground up with the product, creating microparticles that would have both spoiled the taste of your coffee and ended up in your body. Call us old fashioned, but we'd rather not have that happen.

Another day, another recall of a canned product due to the risk of botulism poisoning. This time it was the turn of Death Wish Coffee Company. (we'll resist pointing out the irony of the company's name there), which had to recall all of its 11 ounce-cans of Death Wish Nitro Cold Brew in 2017. After working with an outside process authority, the company discovered that the way it canned its drinks didn't adequately prevent the risk of botulism growing, and it had to pause production until it placed an additional step in its manufacturing process which totally eliminated the chance of the deadly toxin.

The good news for Death Wish Coffee Co. was that nobody had reported any illnesses prior to the recall being issued. The bad news was that it wasn't great publicity for the company, which had built its reputation on its somewhat extreme offer. Death Wish Coffee Co. prides itself on selling what it calls the "world's strongest coffee," which kinda gives us the jitters — and this recall really doesn't help calm our nerves.

You can't deny that Starbucks is fairly unwavering in the quality of its output (although whether you think that quality is high or low is a different question, and probably depends on your taste). In 2023, however, it was left embarrassed when a manufacturing mishap led to a massive recall. Starbucks had to recall 25,200 cases of its bottled vanilla frappuccinos — and with 12 bottles in each case, it was left dealing with hundreds of thousands of individual products. The problem, apparently, was that glass had made its way into some of the bottles, thereby posing a serious risk to health.

It's not entirely clear how the glass made its way into the bottles themselves, but it's not like it could just ignore the issue. A major issue for Starbucks, though, was that its bottles had been shipped pretty much everywhere in the U.S. Multiple expiration dates had been affected by the problem, too, creating even more administration for the coffee giant. Above all, this was a recall that attracted a lot of press, which we're sure wasn't what Starbucks wanted.

We've heard a lot of stuff getting into food in our time ... But antidepressants? Seriously? Yes, seriously. The presence of undeclared fluoxetine, as well as sibutramine, was the cause of a 2021 recall issued by Dash Xclusive. The firm had to recall all of its lots of Imperia Elita Vitaccino Coffee, a drink that was marketed as a weight loss supplement and was sold online to purchasers nationwide.

The fact that these two drugs had made it into the product without approval was a serious cause for concern, not least because one of them, sibutramine, had been withdrawn from the market after red flags had been raised around its safety. In 2010, the FDA recommended that prescriptions and usage of sibutramine was halted after it discovered that it created a higher risk of major cardiovascular events. Fluoxetine, meanwhile, remains approved by the FDA but should not be used without a prescription, not least because it could prompt suicidal thoughts in some users, as MedlinePlus notes.

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Espresso pods are pretty convenient and can help you make cafe-quality coffee at home, but we don't really think about the risks of them as often as we probably should. After all, each pod has a bunch of boiling water forced through it at high pressure — and if there are any manufacturing issues whatsoever, that water can end up where it shouldn't. This was precisely what Tassimo discovered in 2012, when its Espresso T Discs were found to be defective and were becoming clogged up when used, forcing the hot water out of the pods and onto the people using them. This production issue caused a massive recall of the pods. We mean massive, too: Over 2 million were recalled in the U.S., and just under 2 million had to be recalled across Canada.

Sadly, this recall came a little too late for some people. Tassimo was prompted into action after nearly two dozen people reported issues or injury from the hot liquid and coffee grounds, including one toddler who experienced second-degree burns. This wasn't the only recall that Tassimo had faced that year, either. A huge swathe of its brewing machines were taken off the market after nearly 150 reports of issues, and the recall ultimately culminated in a lawsuit against the company.

Modern food packaging is pretty much a science by this point, but things can still go wrong in a massive way. In 2022 Starbucks had its turn learning that fact, when three of its canned coffee products had to be recalled after it was discovered that its seals were defective. The concern was that these faulty seals could have led to the products spoiling, and therefore PepsiCo (which had made the product in partnership with Starbucks) had to put out a recall to stop people from purchasing or drinking them.

The problem was that by the time the recall was issued, there were a lot of cans already around the country. PepsiCo distributed more than 250,000 cases of the Starbucks canned coffees, with each case containing four individual cans. It was helped by the fact that each product had the same best-by date, but there were still a lot of coffees to keep track of. The good news, though, was that it didn't seem as though anybody had become adversely affected by drinking the coffees.

Although food recalls are generally never a good thing, every now and again they feel seriously terrifying. One such incident occurred in 2008, when Mr. Brown coffee mixes were recalled across the U.S. Three separate products of powdered packets of coffee, made in Asia and imported to the U.S., had to be tracked down in more than 20 different states after it was discovered that the items may contain melamine, a chemical compound and byproduct of coal which is typically used in the plastic manufacturing process.

The recall came amidst a major crisis that was unfolding in China, which also involved this melamine. In September 2008 it was made public that approximately 300,000 infants and children in China had been affected by consuming melamine, which had been placed into formula to amp up its protein levels. Six children were reported to have died during the incident, with many others experiencing kidney and urinary tract damage. Although children were unlikely to be drinking the coffee sold under the Mr. Brown brand name, melamine can still affect adults and therefore the product still posed a big risk.

Call us old-fashioned, but we generally like our coffee products to be safe — and definitely prefer it when they don't explode in our hands. It's not too much to ask, right? Apparently it was in 2019, when Blue Bottle Coffee was left dealing with a large recall of its whole bean coffee cans. The company had to recall nearly 200,000 of the cans, which were sold under several different brand names, after customers discovered that they were a little temperamental. Upon opening the cans, more than a dozen customers found that the lid was flying off and the beans were flying out at high speed.

After one person reported an injury from the incident, Blue Bottle Coffee knew that it had to act. Frustratingly for the company, though, it had to recall products that were sold over a period of almost nine months, and via a host of different avenues. Whole Foods, Target, and Amazon were just some of the retailers that sold the cans. We're willing to bet that they weren't happy with the company, which dubbed itself "the future of coffee" ... If the future looks like exploding cans of beans, we'll stay right here in the present.

Back in 2022, food manufacturer Lyons Magnus had to deal with a food recall of pretty hulking proportions. It all began when it discovered that its products were not meeting commercial sterility standards, and therefore that the items it was putting out were at risk of microbial contamination. It soon realized that the issue wasn't just isolated to one or two of its products, but dozens of its carton-packaged drinks, including several coffee products. What was even worse was that these products had been distributed for well over a year before the issue was discovered, meaning that it had to deal with hundreds of separate lots and a huge amount of items.

Although we can imagine that this whole affair was a headache for Lyons Magnus, we're willing to bet that it preferred it to the alternative — which was that its customers became sick from drinking its products. Analysis stated that the drinks could have been contaminated either with Clostridium botulinum or Cronobacter sakazakii, with the latter causing the rare Cronobacter infection, an illness that can result in death in immunocompromised individuals.

In the wide world of coffee beans, the beans themselves are often packaged in pressurized cans, with the vacuum formed inside helping them stay fresh for longer until opened. While this is a good thing for the lifespan of your coffee, it leaves an unfortunate risk of things going wrong when manufacturing issues occur. Italian coffee producer Illy found this out in 2018, when it realized that its whole bean coffee cans were missing an air valve on the bottom of the product. This meant that when each can was opened, it ran the risk of the lid flying off with sudden force, creating the potential for injury.

Luckily, no such injuries were reported, but it was clear that Illy had to get its products back — and there were a lot of them. Approximately 65,000 units were impacted by the manufacturing error, and they had been sold far and wide for about six months before the recall was put out. The fancy coffee beans had been stocked in places like Williams Sonoma, Kroger, Whole Foods, Sur La Table, Target, and online on Amazon. The good news for Illy was that the recall seemed to pass without incident.

Everyone knows that coffee can be stimulating — but in 2017, one particular brand was found to be stimulating in more ways than one. Smaller-scale producer Bestherbs Coffee had to recall its New of Kopi Jantan Tradisional Natural Herbs Coffee, after the product was found by the FDA to contain levels of desmethyl carbodenafil. The company hadn't declared the presence of this compound, which has a similar structure to Viagra.

To be fair to the company, this coffee was marketed as a male enhancement product, so its, shall we say, effects may not have been too surprising. Having said this, the fact that it hadn't clearly signposted the ingredient was alarming, particularly as it's known to interact with certain prescription medications and cause serious consequences. What was even more worrying was that this coffee had been sold for two years before the issue was found, meaning that a lot of product was out there. Oh, and if that wasn't bad enough: It also contained undeclared milk.