From the $20 minimum wage hike that shook up fast-food chains like Shake Shack, to recent bans on jarringly loud Netflix ads and misleading “sell-by” dates, California has spent the last two years aggressively tightening the screws on corporations.
Now, San Francisco is escalating that regulatory pressure with a first-of-its-kind legal strike against the makers of ultraprocessed foods. The target list includes virtually every giant on the supermarket shelf: Kraft Heinz, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé USA, General Mills, Kellogg, Mars, Post Holdings, Conagra, and Mondelēz International.
Filed Tuesday in San Francisco Superior Court, the complaint alleges these conglomerates have “engineered a public health crisis” to pad their bottom lines. The city argues that by hooking residents on products designed to be addictive, these companies have saddled taxpayers with the astronomical costs of treating diabetes, heart disease, and other diet-related conditions.
The lawsuit seeks to claw back those healthcare funds and force an end to what the city terms “deceptive marketing”. Moreover, the complaint positions ultraprocessed foods in the same legal lineage as tobacco and opioids.
The battle for accountability
San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu didn’t mince words, noting that while Americans are trying to avoid these foods, they are “inundated by them.” He accused the companies of profiting from a crisis they created—one they must now help fix.
The filing also asks the court to overhaul corporate marketing strategies, award damages to offset taxpayer-funded medical care, and compel companies to undo the effects of what the city calls years of misleading advertising.
The case isn’t simple, though. Unlike tobacco, the term “ultraprocessed food” doesn’t have a firm legal definition. Although the state recently became the first to define the term for school-meal restrictions, even that leaves major gray areas.
Separately, the FDA is working on a national definition, but the process is just beginning, and courts haven’t shown much enthusiasm for the concept.
This judicial skepticism was on full display in August, when a federal judge in Pennsylvania dismissed a similar lawsuit filed by a 19-year-old. The court tossed the case because the plaintiff failed to pinpoint exactly which specific products caused his Type 2 diabetes—a ruling that sets a difficult precedent for broad claims.
All this creates a glaring vulnerability for San Francisco’s case, as the complaint attempts to group everything from soda to yogurt into one category, but the lack of consensus and the sheer diversity of products make this far more complex than the tobacco battles of the 1990s.
Still, the cultural moment matters. Public frustration with “hyper-engineered” food has gone mainstream, crossing political lines and income brackets. Surveys consistently show people want fewer artificial ingredients, fewer additives, and fewer industrial formulations.
The shift has already pushed multiple states to ban certain ingredients or require warning labels, forcing companies into expensive packaging and recipe changes. In response, major brands have formed a new lobbying coalition to push for a single federal standard rather than a patchwork of state-level rules.
Opening the floodgates
San Francisco’s move can be considered the first shot of many. If a court validates even part of the argument that ultraprocessed foods create predictable health burdens and that manufacturers knowingly contributed to them, other cities are sure to follow.
Individual companies named in the suit haven’t issued statements yet, though their industry trade group has already pushed back: the Consumer Brands Association argues the category is too broad, consumers have choice, and that attempting to classify foods as unhealthy simply because they’re processed, or demonizing food by ignoring its full nutrient content, misleads consumers and exacerbates health disparities.
For now, the case enters early litigation, where the city must link marketing decisions and product formulations to the healthcare costs taxpayers now carry. If the lawsuit succeeds, it could reshape how the U.S. regulates and consumes its most common packaged foods.
Sources: Reuters, SF City Attorney, NPR, Food Dive, California DIR, FDA