- Food companies like Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have sued governments worldwide to prevent <a href="https://healthylife7.com/latest-class-of-stead-scholars-gains-awareness-of-public-health/" title="Latest Class of Stead Scholars Gains Awareness of Public Health“>public health proposals, such as warning labels on ultraprocessed foods, from being implemented.
- A study found that between 2010 and 2025, food companies filed 239 lawsuits in six countries, with most focusing on labels detailing ingredients and nutritional value.
- Public health experts suggest that the high number of lawsuits indicates that labeling and other public health measures are effective in reducing sales of unhealthy products, with Mexico being a key battleground due to high rates of childhood obesity.
Republished with permissionfromInvestigate Midwest.
Companies such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Mars have regularly sued governments around the world in an effort to prevent public health proposals from being implemented, according to new reporting by Lighthouse Reports and a slew of media partners
Diets full of ultraprocessed foods — such as fast food, cereals, soft drinks and protein bars — have been linked to poor health outcomes. Governments around the globe have responded by adding warning labels on packages and placing restrictions on marketing
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To fight back, food companies have sued 239 times between 2010 and 2025 The analysis examined lawsuits in six countries, including the U.S., Britain and India
Most of the lawsuits focused on food products’ labels, which detail the ingredients and nutritional value
There wouldn’t be a slew of lawsuits if labeling wasn’t effective, a public health expert at New York University told The Guardian. “The lawsuits tell us that public health measures reduce sales of unhealthful products,” she said
The vast majority of lawsuits were filed in Mexico, where many of the country’s children and adolescents are considered overweight
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After the country instituted a labeling requirement for soft drinks, a local company that bottled Pepsi sued, saying the labels “demonized” the product Judges rejected the legal argument
The new reporting also highlights an example in the U.S
A small city in California instituted a tax on soft drinks. Then, a group bankrolled by Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and the maker of Dr. Pepper started recruiting young Black and Latino political candidates who campaigned against the tax, arguing it discriminated against poor people
This article first appeared on Investigate Midwest and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
