The city of San Francisco on Tuesday sued ten leading food makers over their ultra-processed products, accusing the industry’s giants of knowingly selling foods that have been linked to a rise in serious diseases.
City officials claim the companies’ tactics resemble those of the tobacco industry. Local governments, they argue, have to shoulder the public health care costs.
Firms including Kraft Heinz, Mondelez and Coca-Cola have intentionally marketed addictive, unhealthy products in violation of California laws on public nuisance and unfair competition, according to the complaint.
Kraft, Mondelez and the other companies named as defendants did not immediately respond to requests for comment
Their products range from cookies and sweets to cereal and granola bars.
“These companies engineered a public health crisis, they profited handsomely, and now they need to take responsibility for the harm they have caused,” said San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said in a statement.
Sarah Gallo, senior vice president of product policy at the Consumer Brands Association, an industry trade group, said an “agreed upon scientific definition” of ultra-processed foods does not exist.
“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,” Ms Gallo said in a statement.
Food and beverage manufacturers, she added, are introducing new products with more protein and fibre, less sugar and sodium and without synthetic colour additives.
The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court and one of the first of its kind, argues that the growing availability of ultra-processed foods has coincided with a “dramatic increase” in obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancers and other chronic illnesses.
“This case is about food products with hidden health harms,” the complaint states.
The city is requesting monetary penalties and a statewide order forcing the food giants to change their “deceptive” marketing tactics.
Concern about ultra-processed foods has emerged as an area of consensus among some left-leaning officials and the Trump administration, even as they remain divided over Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s other positions, including his scepticism of vaccines.
In April, Kennedy announced that the US would, for example, ban eight commonly used artificial food dyes.
The US health secretary and his Make America Healthy Again movement have also called for companies to remove ingredients such as corn syrup, seed oils and artificial dyes from their products, linking them to health problems.
Some food companies have announced changes to their products since Trump’s return to the White House. Coca-Cola this summer agreed to use real cane sugar in its drinks sold in the US.
San Francisco’s lawsuit is the first filed by a government entity over food companies’ intentional marketing of ultra-processed foods.
But this year, a judge in Pennsylvania dismissed a separate complaint brought by an individual who claimed ultra-processed foods contributed to his diabetes and liver disease diagnoses.
