Ultraprocessed Foods Lawsuit Naming 11 Processors Is Dismissed

That December 2024 lawsuit accusing 11 major food companies of intentionally designing ultraprocessed foods to be addictive and to market them to children was dismissed by a federal judge in Philadelphia Monday (Aug. 25).

Coca-Cola Co., Conagra, General Mills, Kellanova, Kraft Heinz, Mars, Mondelez, Nestle USA, PepsiCo, Post Foods and WK Kellogg all were named as defendants in the suit that charged they used 1980s tobacco marketing tactics to addict children to unhealthy foods.

The plaintiff in the case was a now 19-year-old Philadelphia boy who was diagnosed with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and Type 2 diabetes when he was 16. He claims his addiction to products from those companies led to his diseases.

Morgan & Morgan, the law firm that filed the suit, claimed that the 1980s ownership of Kraft and General Foods by Philip Morris and Nabisco (now Mondelez) and Del Monte by RJ Reynolds led to sharing of marketing tactics between the parent tobacco companies and their food subsidiaries. “They used their cigarette playbook to fill our food with addictive substances that are aggressively marketed to children and minorities,” the firm said in the filing.

The law firm apparently was hoping for the same outcome as the 1990s tobacco litigation that resulted in a global settlement of more than $200 billion and forced changes in how cigarettes are marketed.

Despite her concerns over “the practices used to create and market” ultra-processed foods, and their negative effects on children, District Judge Mia Perez found that the complaint did not show a direct connection between ultraprocessed foods and the illnesses of the plaintiff, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

“There are simply not enough facts to suggest that Defendants’ products caused Plaintiff’s harm,” Perez wrote in the opinion. “Basic pleading rules require Plaintiff to plead more than the mere possibility of causation.

“By naming over 100 brands, Plaintiff has put thousands of products at issue without any additional information to identify which caused his harm,” the Inquirer quoted the judge. “That is unacceptable.”