Editor's Plate: I've Seen This Movie Before

Ultraprocessed foods is the scariest topic I have seen in more than 30 years of writing about the food & beverage industry. One other issue comes close, and that one had what I would call a surprise happy ending – something I hope will be repeated for UPFs.

There’s another metaphorical business case history that did not have a happy ending – although a well-deserved negative outcome. I don’t think it applies to the food & beverage industry, although a lot of people are trying to draw parallels.

Ultraprocessed foods (UPFs) will rank high on any list reviewing 2025 or previewing 2026 for the food & beverage industry. I think the issue will be reckoned with, one way or another, in one arena or another, this year.

That happy ending I mentioned was the settlement of labeling for genetically engineered ingredients in foods. Despite all the furor back in the 2010s, I doubt the federal requirement to label genetically engineered ingredients has hurt any food or beverage company. Reformulating your products without Blue 1&2, Green 3, Red 3&40 and Yellow 5&6 will be a pain, but not an impossibility. All that was or is doable.

How about reformulating your entire product portfolio? Maybe even terminating some products that cannot be saved? Are we about to see the end of the Oreo or Twinkie? Maybe even of Mondelez and J.M. Smucker?

Nah, that’s doomsday stuff. But give it at least a moment’s thought.

I suspect nobody back in the 1980s thought some silly lawsuits could bring down the global tobacco industry. After all, smoking was a personal choice, a God-given right, and no one was forcing cigarettes on anyone. People wanted cigarettes.

Ever hear someone describe a favorite food product as “so good it’s addictive”?

Big Tobacco became so big in the past century that Philip Morris bought General Foods and Miller Brewing, then Kraft Foods. R.J. Reynolds countered by buying Nabisco. (Ever seen the 1993 movie “Barbarians at the Gate”? Great flick [and book] about the subsequent leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. Look for it on some streaming service.)

Tobacco’s good times didn’t last long. After lawsuits by attorneys general of 46 states, the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement of 1998 resulted in payments of $206 billion over the first 25 years of the settlement to compensate states for healthcare costs related to smoking. It forever altered the marketing of those products – and the public perception of smoking.

Despite the sizable financial dent, it didn’t put Philip Morris or R.J. Reynolds out of business, but Brown & Williamson and Lorillard, the other two defendants, were weakened enough to be acquired.

I don’t want to see that happening to General Mills, Kraft Heinz or Conagra … none of which has been on solid financial footing for the past year.

First off, what are we even talking about? There isn’t even a clear and universally accepted definition of ultraprocessed foods. The Nova classification system from 2009 laid out an interesting but problematic foundation for the discussion, but it needs to be refined.

Who better to refine it and shape some self-regulation – all in a non-defensive, non-confrontational way – than the food industry?

Last November, the highly regarded medical journal The Lancet published a three-paper report that claimed a “UPF industry” was “infiltrating government agencies” to maintain its control of the food supply. Then in December, the city attorney for San Francisco filed suit against 10 of the country’s largest food processors with the same goal as those 46 state attorneys general did against Big Tobacco: Pay for the health crisis you’ve (allegedly) caused.

The San Francisco lawsuit closely resembled a single-plaintiff December 2024 lawsuit in Philadelphia, which was dismissed last August but indicated a plan of attack.

So there is plenty of writing going up on the walls. Hearkening back to the genetically engineered labeling issue, the food industry’s leading companies fought that from day one – in a few cases illegally – but got lucky with a rather painless solution. They may not be so lucky in any resolution of the UPF debate.

Not every consumer is developing a fear of ultraprocessed foods. Not every consumer has even heard the term … yet. But in my 30 years, I’ve never seen this much criticism leveled at nearly the entire food & beverage industry.

Like it or not, there is a problem. Fair or not, the food industry has been fingered as the cause of the problem. Ready or not, you need to be a big part of the solution.