San Francisco Is Suing Junk Food Giants Over Ultra-Processed Foods

When it comes to the topic of ultra-processed foods (UPFs), it’s one of those scenarios where most observers from either side of the political aisle can largely agree on some broad generalities, like “we probably shouldn’t eat primarily junk food,” or “kids should have access to healthier meals.” Any consensus beyond that, however, instantly evaporates when it comes time to take any form of action, because action requires some kind of consistent application of ideology or knowledge. People can’t agree with each other about what food is relatively “healthy” or “unhealthy”–nor, in many cases, can researchers or scientists. We know that “junk food” is bad, but we drown in semantic shades of gray in the attempt to decide what does or does not qualify as junk food in the first place. That’s what makes the city of San Francisco’s landmark new lawsuit so fascinating, as it attempts to take some of the world’s largest producers of supermarket staple foods and drinks to task for the slew of negative health consequences associated with ultra-processed foods. It’s the first suit of its kind, but by no means will be the last. You can’t help but naturally assume that this is a Sisyphean task, except in this case it’s like if Sisyphus first had to make millions of people agree on a definition for “boulder” before he’s allowed to start rolling it.

San Francisco’s attempt to sue the likes of Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo, Kraft Heinz, General Mills, Kellogg, Mars Incorporated, ConAgra Brands, Nestlé and others, however, is at least girded by the most basic of requirements, which is a recently instituted state definition for “ultra-processed foods.” That law, the “Real Food, Healthy Kids Act,” was signed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom at the beginning of October, and seeks to use its definition of ultra-processed foods to eventually restrict the most problematic of those foods from lunches and meals served to children in the California public school system. We would be talking about a huge overhaul here, given that on average, kids in the school system are getting more than 60% of their calories from those ultra-processed foods, according to the CDC, and roughly 70% of the entire U.S. food supply could be deemed ultra-processed. Thus, attempts to remove them from the system will be an immense undertaking, with a long lead-up time: The final law says food vendors must report all ultra-processed food by the start of 2028, with the goal of having “all ultra-processed food of concern” out of the schools by mid … 2035. So yeah, they’re playing a long game on that one, but it joins other state-wide health initiatives in the liberal state such as bans on food dyes. San Francisco, meanwhile, banned fast food restaurants from including promotional toys in meals in 2010 as a means of appealing to children.

As for the state’s ultra-processed food definition, it’s entirely too sprawling to attempt to encapsulate here, but you can read (and attempt to wrap your head around) the full text of the Real Food, Healthy Kids Act here. In short, the ultra-processed foods cited as being of highest concern involve those that contain especially high ratios of energy from saturated fat, sodium and sugar, as well as elements such as stabilizers and thickeners, propellants, artificial colors, emulsifiers, “flavor enhancers,” surface-active agents and nonnutritive sweeteners. The science is quite clear and well-accepted at this point that these elements contribute to harm to pretty much every major organ system in the body, so California will prioritize eliminating ultra-processed foods that meet these criteria, while acknowledging that they will by no means restrict them all. The American Heart Association acknowledges that some of these products bearing the “ultra-processed” label can still be considered generally healthy, with cited examples of “certain whole grain breads, low-sugar yogurts, tomato sauces, and nut or bean-based spreads.”

San Francisco’s newly filed and novel lawsuit against 10 large corporations making ultra-processed foods is based on the argument that the clearly apparent health costs of exposing consumers to these foods ultimately costs the government huge amounts of money in the cost of treating disease and ameliorating the effects of poor health. The suit accuses the defendant companies of marketing and selling their foods in unfair and deceptive ways in terms of portraying health value, in violation of state unfair competition and “public nuisance” laws. The lawsuit also claims that the defendant companies “knew that their food made people sick but sold it anyway,” according to The Guardian. The city of San Francisco’s attorney, David Chiu, gives the following, mildly absurd quote: “It makes me sick that generations of kids and parents are being deceived and buying food that’s not food.”

I’m sorry, but “buying food that’s not food” has the feel of a laughable, scaremongering line, quasi-noble though the quest may be. The fact of the matter is that these foods are such a huge part of our daily lives, on a nigh-universal level, that almost no one aside from certified health nuts and home-cooking enthusiasts is free from exposure to them. Does this lawyer want to go on the record about how often he personally consumes these same ultra-processed foods? If I go to his pantry, am I really not going to find any bags of chips, commercially sliced bread, or canned soup in there? The temptation to call out hypocrisy is strong, but at the same time we should likely acknowledge that the San Francisco lawsuit also has the potential to be a valuable first step in forcing these corporations to acknowledge the deleterious effects of so many of their products, potentially forcing them in the direction of more natural alternatives. We’ll just have to acknowledge that this is going to be a very messy process indeed.

San Francisco is suing ultraprocessed food companies.

The city attorney is filing the first government lawsuit in the US against manufacturers of ultraprocessed food.

He argues that cities are burdened with the cost of treating diseases that ultraprocessed food brings on.

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— More Perfect Union (@moreperfectunion.bsky.social) Dec 2, 2025 at 9:44 AM

The lawsuit is also a rare instance of a notably liberal city/state’s policy aligning with some part of the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) agenda espoused by Health and Human Services Secretary and brain worm-having, roadkill-eating enthusiast Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has likewise made ultra-processed foods a frequent target of criticism. With that said, California’s move to codify the term and start crafting legislation to take it on is a whole lot more than Kennedy has actually done on the topic–his MAHA Commission said it would act on ultra-processed food, but its final report released in September merely concluded that the government would “continue to work on developing a definition” for the term at some unspecified future date, declining to act on any preemptive bans on specific additives. Chiu, perhaps unsurprisingly, commented on the unusual confluence of efforts with Kennedy, saying “Many of the perspectives of this administration are not backed by science, but this is different. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.”

A representative from the Consumer Brands Association, the trade group that represents many of the food companies that are defendants in the lawsuit, responded to the announcement of the lawsuit by telling NYT that it amounted to “demonizing food by ignoring its full nutrient content,” which “misleads consumers and exacerbates health disparities” in its own way. Nevertheless, the same representative also said the manufacturers “were working to introduce products with more protein and fiber, less sugar and no synthetic dyes,” suggesting that there is some level where making food products as alluring as possible isn’t worth the headache of fighting litigation about them. And you can bet that the higher these types of lawsuits ultimately go, the more noise the manufacturers will be making about their “voluntary” efforts to provide healthier versions of their products. We can think of worse outcomes than our next sleeve of Oreos being marginally less deadly.