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Helena
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California tries to make non-ultra-processed foods the new ‘organic’
There’s a new effort in California to nudge grocery shoppers toward foods that are not considered ultra-processed.
Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel — the state lawmaker who’s already spearheaded many of California’s recent moves against ultra-processed foods (UPFs) — this week announced legislation that would create a brand new “California Certified” seal that food manufacturers could use on their packages if they meet certain criteria.
The goal here, as Gabriel and others noted this week, is to create a voluntary label much like we already have for “organic” — a regulated term that farmers and food makers can use to market their products if they meet certain standards and submit to certification. (California would know something about this: Back in the day, the state created its own organic certification program that helped put pressure on Congress to finally mandate a federal standard in 1990.)
The new “California Certified” scheme would be voluntary, which makes it harder for the industry to push back, but California is such a massive market that such a move would almost certainly have ripple effects nationwide.
“This new seal doesn’t limit consumer choice, it just makes informed choice possible,” Gabriel said this week in a press release.
This isn’t Gabriel’s first rodeo. He recently shepherded AB 1264, a groundbreaking law to phase out ultra-processed foods the state deems most concerning from school meals, as well as statewide bans on controversial ingredients, with sweeping bipartisan support in both chambers of the California legislature. As with past efforts, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) is also co-sponsoring this new measure.
Retail rules: While the label itself is voluntary, retailers would face new requirements under this bill. The measure requires large food retailers to make certified “not ultraprocessed” products more prominent in stores. Per EWG: “If a grocery store sells more than 25 non-UPF-certified products and has more than $10 million in annual sales overall, it would be required to display California Certified products prominently, for instance, at checkout or store entrances.”
Anti-UPF strategy: This effort to create a new certification program follows in the footsteps of Gabriel’s AB 1264 in many ways. If passed, the California Department of Public Health would oversee the certification system, which would have independent agents verify which products meet the state’s non-UPF standards and qualify to use the “California Certified” label. Under AB 1264, a food is considered ultra-processed if it is high in saturated fat, added sugar or sodium and contains a food additive such as flavor, color, emulsifier or a thickening agent.
The non-UPF buzz: This legislation from Gabriel comes at a time when non-UPF labels are just starting to gain traction in the broader consumer packaged goods market. There are at least three other non-UPF private certification labels in the works or on the market already: Non-UPF Verified, which spawned out of the popular Non-GMO Project, Non-UPF Verified from WISEcode, and Non-UPF Certified from the Non-UPF Program.
Surveys consistently find that consumers are trying to reduce consumption of UPFs — perhaps not surprising considering all the negative headlines about them — but identifying which foods fall into this category is not always easy.
The three private certification labels all have a different approach for defining what counts as non-UPF. As I’ve written before, defining UPFs is more complicated than it might seem. FDA and USDA are currently working on a federal definition, but officials have acknowledged that this is hard to do. (Kennedy though has said a definition is coming in April — so I guess we will see!)
Last month, Non-UPF Verified announced the first products that were verified non-UPF. On the list: Spindrift sparkling beverages, Chomps meat sticks, and Amy’s frozen cheese pizzas and veggie burgers. There are already 300 brands either working on verifying products or on the waitlist, per the group. We’re likely to see more activity in this space, particularly as certain brands see opportunity to differentiate.
Zooming out: One interesting thing I noticed this week: MAHA leaders didn’t seem to have much to say about this new bill in California. There’s been a bit of a rift between the Golden State and the feds — Gov. Newsom likes to needle the Trump administration for not taking more action federally, for example. On a press call this week, Gabriel suggested that California would continue to take action because Washington is not advancing policies aimed at curbing UPF consumption.
“We’d love to see Washington follow our lead, to work in a bipartisan fashion, to work in a fashion that is rooted in science and research and adopt our definition and create some kind of national seal,” Gabriel said. “Until then, there’s no reason that companies couldn’t use the California seal in grocery stores outside of California. We like to believe that California has a brand that people understand and recognize and that would give confidence to shoppers in other states.”
What’s next for ‘California Certified’: The California Assembly Committee on Health is expected to consider Gabriel’s bill in mid-April. He told reporters this week his goal is to get it to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk by August or September. Time will tell if this is another trailblazing idea from California — birthplace of blue jeans and statewide indoor smoking bans, etc. — or one that fizzles out.
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What I’m reading
MAHA Surgeon General Pick Hits Republican Opposition in Senate (Wall Street Journal). “Healthy food advocate Dr. Casey Means, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s choice for surgeon general, currently lacks enough Republican support to advance her nomination, according to people familiar with the matter,” report Natalie Andrews, Liz Essley Whyte, and Olivia Beavers. “To advance to a vote in the full Senate, Means needs the support of all Republicans on the chamber’s health committee if all Democrats are opposed, as is expected. The people familiar with the matter said she doesn’t have that lockstep GOP support. The standstill leaves no obvious path for Means to be confirmed.”
RFK Jr. is losing his grip on the CDC (The Atlantic). “Today, Acting CDC Director Jay Bhattacharya said something that no other prominent health leader in the Trump administration has. ‘I think it is vital that every kid in this country get the measles vaccine. Absolutely vital,’ he told CDC staff at a meeting this morning,” writes Tom Bartlett. “The whole point of the meeting seemed to be to signal a turn toward normalcy, away from the more extreme elements of Kennedy’s agenda. Bhattacharya told the CDC’s beleaguered employees that the agency needed to ‘move on’ from the chaos of the past year. By tomorrow, Bhattacharya’s position may be even more limited. Thanks to some complicated laws about federal governance, if President Trump does not nominate anyone for the role of CDC director by the end of the day today, no one can serve in that role in an acting capacity. The nomination delay comes at a moment when the Make America Healthy Again movement and, by extension, Kennedy appear to be on the ropes.”
As Kennedy takes on food policy, companies push back (New York Times). “In his quest to overhaul the food system, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has vowed to close a loophole that allows food and dietary supplement companies to independently determine whether new ingredients are safe. But the plan is facing stiff pushback from the industry, with lawyers and executives already warning of lawsuits before an official proposal has been unveiled,” writes Christina Jewett. “The resistance from companies is emerging as the work of formulating a policy is in full swing, with Mr. Kennedy’s team pivoting from brokering handshake deals to the tedious work of governing. Mr. Kennedy has not weighed in publicly on the conflict. Instead, he falsely claimed in a podcast that aired on Monday that the GRAS provision had already been eliminated.”
‘We’re on the inside now’: Meet the man building a political empire behind RFK Jr. (Boston Globe). “In the past three years, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has had a dramatic ascent, rocketing from the contrarian fringe to the center of the American health system and leader of a burgeoning political movement,” writes Tal Kopan. “At every step, he’s been bolstered behind the scenes by a lesser-known name: Tony Lyons. A longtime publisher and ally of Kennedy’s, Lyons has built a sprawling political operation to promote Kennedy and his ‘Make America Healthy Again’ brand, a multimillion-dollar endeavor that spans multiple nonprofits, businesses, and a political action committee — one could call it ‘MAHA Inc.’ Under the MAHA banner, Lyons hosts administration officials as he plays emcee on weekly activist organizing calls, holds glitzy cocktail parties at an exclusive D.C. club, and convenes events around the country. Since his campaign, the MAHA Inc. network has amplified Kennedy’s message and ideas, celebrating Kennedy’s overhaul of the nation’s vaccine system and efforts to revamp its food supply. Increasingly, the network is also cheerleading for President Trump, even as other prominent MAHA activists are critical of some of his administration’s recent moves.”
The meme-washing of RFK Jr. (The Atlantic). “America’s health secretary has been on a meme blitz. Last month, the real-life Kennedy stripped down to his jeans to pump iron, cold plunge, and drink whole milk with Kid Rock,” Nicholas Florko writes. “Thanks to AI, Kennedy has also been depicted as a character in the Nintendo game Super Smash Bros. who launches a frosted donut into oblivion, and as an action figure complete with ‘waterproof jeans’ who protects kids from artificial food dyes. Many of them explicitly mention Kennedy’s new slogan: ‘Eat real food.’ They are absurd, juvenile, and, one has to acknowledge, pretty funny in their commitment to the bit. Kennedy—or his team, at least—seems to recognize the advantages of being in on the joke.”
War with Iran disrupts fertilizer exports as U.S. farmers prepare for planting season (NPR). “Spring planting season is starting across the Northern Hemisphere. But before seeds go into the ground, nutrients go into the soil. Typically nitrogen fertilizer,” reports Frank Morris. “The high cost of fertilizer and other farming necessities pushed many row crop farmers into the red last year. [Kansas farmer Matt] Ubel says some were holding out for lower prices this spring, only to see the price of the most common nitrogen fertilizer, urea, spike close to 30% when Iran shut down shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, halting close to half the world’s fertilizer trade. The Fertilizer Institute predicts that U.S. farmers will be short some 2 million tons of urea this spring. The United States is currently the world’s top natural gas producer, which supports a robust domestic fertilizer industry. Still, U.S. companies import about 18% of the nitrogen fertilizer sold in this country, drawing heavily on imports to cover the spring planting surge.”
Corporate vectors of chronic disease — using internal industry documents to craft counterstrategies (NEJM). “Transnational corporations that manufacture and market health-harming products are a primary vector for the global increase in mortality related to noncommunicable diseases,” writes the Consortium of the Center to End Corporate Harm at the University of California, San Francisco. “We believe that the medical and health fields should prioritize research on, and communication about, risks to health associated with corporate activity. Relevant empirical research can leverage internal industry documents obtained with the help of litigation, whistleblowers, and subpoenas under freedom-of-information laws. Research involving industry documents provides direct evidence in the form of firsthand accounts of industry workers regarding what they knew, when they knew it, and the tactics used to delay and prevent regulation and undermine existing regulations.”
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