06 June 2025
Steenbergs Cinnamon Powder - Recent Heavy Metal Test Results
Steenbergs regularly tests for chemical contaminants in its herbs and spices to ensure they're safe. Recent tests show levels of lead in Steenbergs Organic Cinnamon averaged at 0.8 mg/kg.
We're getting a lot of questions about heavy metals at the minute, especially about cinnamon powder. We test for a range of potential chemical contaminants across our spices to check that their levels fall below limits set in regulations for food safety.
Before we get into the results, there is a wrinkle in the information that can be found on the internet. Basically, there's Cinnamomum zeylanicum, which is what Steenbergs sells as organic cinnamon, and goes by other names like True Cinnamon, Ceylon Cinnamon or just Cinnamon. This comes from Sri Lanka, Zanzibar and perhaps from India.
However, there's another Cinnamon called Cassia cinnamon that comes from a variety of different species of cinnamon tree, including Cinnamomum cassia but also Cinnamomum burmanni. This comes from places like China, Indonesia, Vietnam and also India, and goes by the name of Cassia, Baker's Cinnamon and Cinnamon. They're both legally the same spice but they're not the same product. Most of the cinnamon in the US is cassia, especially from Vietnam, and that's where most of the stories about lead in cinnamon come from - as with everything on the web, it has a big bias to the US.
We don't publish results on heavy metals, because there's a lot of variability in results due to sampling variations, so it's not about getting an absolute number but more about patterns to ensure that the raw materials from our supply chain fit within our specifications. Science is not exact, despite what folk think - it's about averages and patterns not firm numbers.
These are our most recent results for organic cinnamon:
| Analyte | Results - Oct 2024 | Results - Mar 2025 |
| Arsenic | 0.092 mg/kg | - |
| Cadmium | 0.327 mg/kg | 0.111 mg/kg |
| Chromium | - | 1.942 mg/kg |
| Lead | 0.947 mg/kg | 0.698 mg/kg |
| Mercury | 0.010 mg/kg | 0.006 mg/kg |
Steenbergs Organic Cinnamon Powder - which comes from Sri Lanka - has okay levels of heavy metals. The general view in the UK is that levels below 2 mg/kg of lead are satisfactory, with these results giving an average of 0.8 mg/kg for our cinnamon.
The other spice that we get queries on is organic turmeric and I will put up some results on that in the next week or so.
