Big Food Fights

Food manufacturers lose the first round.

Food is making a lot of big news lately.

Below are some of the top stateside stories.

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The Texas Legislature has voted to put warning labels on junk food.

Senate Bill 25, passed unanimously in the Texas State Senate, mandates labels on products containing any of more than 40 additives that the federal government currently allows but bans in many other countries.

The list of ingredients includes synthetic dyes, titanium dioxide, bleached flour, partially hydrogenated oils, melatonin, and various food colorings. The label must state: "This product contains an artificial color, chemical, or food additives that are banned in Australia, Canada, the European Union, or the United Kingdom.

The bill, passed unanimously by the Texas State Senate, is now on Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk. Health Secretary RFK Jr. has backed the legislation, as it aligns with the White House’s/HHS MAHA initiative.

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Junk food blocked from SNAP purchases in Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska and soon - Texas

Texas legislature has also signed legislation to eliminate unhealthy foods from the Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program (SNAP) after state Sen. Mayes Middleton's Senate Bill 379 passed in the last week of the legislative session. Gov. Greg Abbott is expected to sign the measure quickly.

This move follows U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins's announcement in January that the agency would back measures that prevent SNAP recipients from using their benefits to purchase certain foods.

Gov. Greg Abbott has stated that he has already told Rollins’ office that he wants a waiver from the old federal rules (still in place) to block junk food purchases through SNAP.

Indiana, Iowa, and Nebraska have passed similar legislation and received waivers.

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Louisiana legislators have passed a measure reforming nutrition and ingredient labeling in schools, food manufacturers, and restaurants.

The bill will now go to my friend, Gov. Jeff Landry's desk for signature - who is expected to sign the legislation immediately.

This legislation aligns with the "Make America Healthy Again" initiative, which is backed by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

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Pennsylvania

In Pennsylvania, Natalie Mihalek, a Republican state representative, has introduced a package of laws targeting Big Food, including a ban on unhealthy, ultra-processed foods. This has yet to come up for a vote.

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A proposed Wisconsin Senate bill would ban food additives in some school lunches

The Wisconsin Senate Committee on Health will hold a public hearing to discuss a bill limiting certain ingredients in free or reduced-price school lunches.

The bill text states:

This bill prohibits school boards and independent charter schools from providing food that contains brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propylparaben, azodicarbonamide, or red dye 3 to pupils as part of free or reduced-price meals provided under the National School Lunch Program or the federal School Breakfast Program.

The bill does not prohibit school boards and independent charter schools from allowing private vendors to serve food containing any of those ingredients on school premises or at school-sponsored activities.

Arkansas has already introduced a similar ban. Make Arkansas Healthy Again Act, would prohibit the use of potassium bromate, propylparaben, and erythrosine in foods.

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The Courts may have an outsized role to play in the ultra-processed food fight

(From the Times)-
Personal injury lawyers have spotted an opportunity. In a groundbreaking lawsuit filed in December, Morgan & Morgan, the Florida-based law firm, accused 11 US food groups, including Kraft Heinz, Mondelez, PepsiCo and WK Kellogg, of engineering ultra-processed foods to make them highly addictive and using tobacco company-style sales tactics that have seen UPFs displace traditional foods.

In the lawsuit, plaintiff Bryce Martinez, an 18-year-old from Pennsylvania, alleges the actions of US food companies caused him to develop type 2 diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease by the age of 16.

Hilliard Law, a Texas-based firm, says it has been contacted by hundreds of people after calling for plaintiffs who believe they or their children have suffered from health problems that their doctor “has linked directly to the consumption of ultra-processed foods”. The law firm plans to file its first complaint before the end of the year.

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It is not all good news.

North Dakota and Georgia Legislators Vote to Support Pesticide Manufacturers

North Dakota and Georgia have become the first states to pass laws limiting liability for pesticide manufacturers in failure-to-warn lawsuits. These laws will make it harder for pesticide users to win cases claiming harm from pesticides approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

An important note: glyphosate is classified as a pesticide by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). According to the EPA, a pesticide is defined as any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any pest, as well as substances used as plant regulators, defoliants, or desiccants.

So these bills would most likely include glyphosate (round-up) and all other weed killers and desiccants - currently approved by the EPA. This legislation will make it very hard for people who have been damaged by pesticides to sue chemical companies that produce pesticides for damages.

In North Dakota, Governor Kelly Armstrong signed H.B. 1318 into law. Several weeks later, Georgia, Governor Brian Kemp signed a parallel piece of legislation. Similar bills have also been introduced in several other states, including Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, and Florida.

Bayer has faced about 177,000 lawsuits involving RoundUp and has paid billions of dollars in settlements. U.S. farmers use hundreds of millions of pounds of RoundUp every year, according to the U.S. Geological Survey—not including private home and landscaping use.

When similar legislation failed to pass in multiple states in 2024, Bayer founded the Modern Ag Alliance, a coalition that claims to be protecting farmers’ access to “crop protection tools.” The group spent over US$300,000 on Meta ads in 2025 alone, the majority of which boast the safety and efficacy of glyphosate or assert that glyphosate keeps food prices down.

But a survey conducted by the Idaho Conservation League found that 90 percent of Idahoans opposed the legislation. -Foodtank.

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Despite the setbacks in Georgia and North Dakota, states are taking the Make America Healthy Again initiatives out of DC and converting those policies into law. Model legislation is being shared between states and the outlook is good for some real change.

With each state that passes such legislation, it will be harder for big food companies to continue adding harmful chemicals to our foods.

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