In a historic action, San Francisco on Tuesday became the first government to file a lawsuit against food manufacturers over ultra-processed snacks and drinks that officials argue are wreaking havoc on Americans’ health.
San Francisco’s lawsuit, which names 10 of the most popular food manufacturers known for highly processed fare — Kraft Heinz Company, Mondelez International, Post Holdings, The Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo, General Mills, Nestle USA, Kellogg, Mars Incorporated and Conagra Brands — argues that the food industry knew its products were making people sick, but continued to market the addictive foods to maximize profits.
The suit doesn’t seek a ban on the sale of any products, but instead a statewide order prohibiting the companies from continuing what the city describes as “deceptive marketing” targeting children, particularly in Black and Latino communities. The city is also asking for the companies to pay an unspecified amount of money to abate what officials have called a public health crisis.
The lawsuit is reminiscent of legal battles against large tobacco companies in the 1990s in which states sought to recover billions in healthcare costs associated with treating smoking-related illnesses. That fight ended with a master settlement agreement that provided funds to states and also restricted tobacco advertising, marketing and promotions.
But tobacco companies, including Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds, purchased major food companies in the 1980s and used the same marketing techniques that once got people to purchase addictive cigarettes to now buy food that is highly palatable, but also often unhealthy, said San Francisco City Atty. David Chiu.
“Like the tobacco industry, they knew their products make people very sick, but hid the truth from the public, profited from untold billions and left Americans to deal with the consequences,” Chiu said during a news conference Tuesday. “We’re talking about food that is not found in nature, created by combining artificial chemicals with industrialized processes.”
“You can see a few of the worst offenders right here,” he said, pointing to a table piled high with staple snacks like Oreos, strawberry-flavored Cheerios, Lunchables, Hot Pockets and Cheetos that are favorites of many Americans, including countless children.
The companies named in the lawsuit did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Consumer Brands Assn., a trade organization that represents many of the companies named in the suit, said in a statement that there is no universal scientific definition of ultra-processed foods.
Manufacturers are continuing to introduce new products with increased protein and fiber, lower sugar and sodium and no synthetic color additives, said Sarah Gallo, senior vice president of product policy, in a media statement.
“Attempting to classify foods as unhealthy simply because they are processed, or demonizing food by ignoring its full nutrient content, misleads consumers and exacerbates health disparities,” Gallo said. “Companies adhere to the rigorous evidence-based safety standards established by the FDA to deliver safe, affordable and convenient products that consumers depend on every day. Americans deserve facts based on sound science in order to make the best choices for their health.”
The share of ultra-processed foods on grocery store shelves increased dramatically in the 1980s and 1990s. Now, about 70% of the U.S. food supply is ultra-processed fare, most of which has ample added ingredients like sugar, salt, fat and artificial colors or preservatives. Products like frozen meals, soft drinks, hot dogs, packaged cookies, cakes and salty snacks like chips fall into this category, according to researchers.
But not all ultra-processed food is inherently unhealthy, according to the Yale School of Public Health, which notes that some foods that fall into that category like whole-grain breads and yogurts are associated with a lower risk of chronic diseases.
In the lawsuit, San Francisco argues that the variety of products found in grocery stores today “give the illusion of consumer choice” but Americans are largely forced to make their selections between “different configurations of chemicals that are making them sick,” according to the city’s news release.
Ultra-processed foods are typically more affordable than nonprocessed fare, but Chiu argued during the news conference that consuming highly processed products comes with its own costs. Research has linked diets high in ultra-processed foods to a variety of health conditions including obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and mental health disorders.
In 2024, researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health focused on the health consequences of specific types of ultra-processed foods, collecting data from participants every four years for more than three decades. The study found that participants who ate the most ultra-processed food of any kind faced a 4% higher risk of all-cause mortality than those who ate the least ultra-processed food.
However, experts at UC Davis have noted that the vast majority of research on ultra-processed foods has been observational, meaning people are asked to report what they eat and scientists take that information and use statistical analysis to explore associations with various health outcomes. A majority of studies have skewed heavily in the direction of food frequency, or how often people are consuming certain items.
“The only thing we actually know about ultra-processed foods is that, when given the option to eat them, they’re so tasty and it’s so easy to overeat them that you end up eating more calories than you normally would, and you end up gaining weight as a result,” said Angela Zivkovic, professor of nutrition at UC Davis, based on her research.
This has made it more difficult to tie the cause of specific health ailments to certain foods, said Diana Winters, deputy director of the Resnick Center for Food Law and Policy at UCLA.
“It’s big because for years, I think people have talked about the idea of going after food companies similar to the way governments and individuals went after tobacco companies, but the worry was that we didn’t have the data to show the causation,” Winters said.
However, over the years, “research has shown more and more that the specific processing is causing these diet-related diseases,” Winters said. “The idea that we now have the data to show these specific health effects to the point of showing it in court is a turning point.”
Ultra-processed foods are high in sodium, added sugar, saturated fats and chemicals that are designed to make the food easy and pleasurable to eat and overeat, Chiu said. He said his own mother used to bribe him with Pringles to get him to take swim lessons. “To this day, I love my Pringles, but they are designed to be highly addictive,” he said.
Confronting additives in foods and highly processed fare has proven to be a rare bipartisan issue. U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been critical of ultra-processed foods as part of his Make America Healthy Again agenda. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom in October signed a first-in-the-nation law to remove ultra-processed foods from school lunches.
Last year, he signed Assembly Bill 2316 to ban food from schools containing dyes known as blue 1, blue 2, green 3, red 40, yellow 5 and yellow 6, industry staples that can give foods unnaturally vibrant colors in an effort to make them more appealing.
Food experts like Gabby Headrick, the director of the undergraduate program in nutrition at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University, argue that consumers would benefit from more education on ultra-processed foods as well as a nationwide policy of front-of-label packaging.
“We have many examples in other countries that we can look to that show that when you put a label on the front of a package that indicates that that food is high in added sugars, high in saturated fat or high in sodium, it can help consumers understand the foods that they’re purchasing much more easily without having to look at that complicated nutrition facts label,” Headrick said.
