San Francisco is going after food brands that produce “ultra-processed foods,” accusing the companies of fueling a public health crisis.
The 64-page lawsuit, filed on December 2 by San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu, accused some of the country’s biggest food brands of selling dangerous, ultra-processed foods to residents of San Francisco.
It named 11 brands as defendants: The Kraft Heinz Company, Mondelez International, Post Holdings, The Coca-Cola Company, Pepsico Inc., General Mills, Nestlé, Kellanova, WK Kellogg Co., Mars Inc., and Conagra Brands.
The lawsuit said that the brands had profited from selling ultra-processed foods, which make people crave what they otherwise would not. The lawsuit accused the brands of failing to include health warnings, making fraudulent claims about the products being healthy, and of targeted marketing at children.
Products from these brands include cereals, candies, soft drinks, and ready-to-eat meals.
“They designed food to be addictive, they knew the addictive food they were engineering was making their customers sick, and they hid the truth from the public,” the lawsuit wrote, adding that taxpayers were left to foot the bill of a resulting public health crisis.
It said that ultra-processed foods majorly contribute to obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other chronic illnesses.
Chiu called for the brands to cease further deceptive marketing and pay civil penalties to the city of San Francisco.
Representatives for the 11 brands did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
The lawsuit comes as the US is clamping down on processed foods, a result of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement.
In April, Kennedy said he would phase out eight petroleum-based food dyes in the US by 2027. And in July, President Donald Trump said that Coca-Cola had agreed to use real cane sugar in its products in the US, instead of corn syrup that it now uses.
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