A coalition of food companies and industry groups is backing a campaign to halt the proliferation of state laws aimed at regulating the food supply and advocating a nationwide standard instead.
Americans for Ingredient Transparency launched this week as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and his Make America Healthy Again movement back efforts in Republican-led states to pass or consider new requirements to improve the food supply.
The non-profit advocacy group says that while individual states have made well-intentioned efforts to enact transparency laws related to ingredients in food and household products, the trend in state-by-state requirements represents a growing burden on suppliers and risks confusion in the marketplace.
Food and beverage industry companies including Conagra Brands, Kraft Heinz, and PepsiCo are backed by trade groups including FMI — the Food Industry Association, the Consumer Brands Association, and the American Beverage Association in calling for a national standard for ingredients that would apply “consistent, science- and risk-based principles to give Americans everywhere confidence in the safety of food, beverage and personal-care products.”
MMR
The coalition said its two core principles are establishing that the Food and Drug Administration is the sole entity to set the bounds of regulations on the marketing and sale of food and beverages, including ingredient approvals and labeling requirements, and that regulations must be based on well-established scientific principles.
The coalition wants to work with the Trump administration on key food policy issues such as front-of-package nutrition labeling and QR codes.
Many CPG companies are heeding Kennedy’s call to voluntarily remove certain synthetic dyes from their products. General Mills, PepsiCo, Conagra, Nestlé, Hershey and Kraft Heinz have said they'll remove artificial dyes from their products within the next two years.
But some in the MAHA base have been less than satisfied, asserting that the commitments aren't enforceable and wouldn’t do much to address the primary drivers of chronic diseases that Kennedy has made his cause.
