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Editorial note: As usual, today’s Food Fix is about a single newsy topic, but I want to draw attention to another news story that’s at the top of “What I’m reading” today: FDA’s decision to delay food traceability requirements 14 years after Congress asked for this to help improve food safety. Consumer and public health advocates are livid while certain segments of the food industry are relieved. It’s an important story that’s likely to get lost in the news cycle.
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Alright, let’s get to it –
Helena
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. launches review of infant formula amid seed oils controversy
The Trump administration this week announced a review and potential revamp of infant formula as part of its “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.
“Operation Stork Speed” — a nod to “Operation Warp Speed” during the pandemic — includes plans to review and update the nutrients required for infant formula for the first time since the Clinton administration. It also proposes increased testing for heavy metals and other contaminants and more collaboration with the National Institutes of Health and “other scientific bodies to address priority scientific research gaps,” among other things.
“The FDA will use all resources and authorities at its disposal to make sure infant formula products are safe and wholesome for the families and children who rely on them,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “Helping each family and child get off to the right start from birth is critical to our pursuit to Make America Healthy Again.”
The announcement from HHS came right after RFK Jr. met with the CEOs of major formula makers, including Abbott, Reckitt, Perrigo and Bobbie. It also came right before Consumer Reports issued a report finding “concerning” levels of heavy metals in some infant formula products.
A word about heavy metals: The FDA currently does not have limits for heavy metals in infant formula, and the agency has been extremely slow to set them for foods marketed to babies and other young children. (FDA launched its Closer to Zero initiative back in 2021 after being essentially bullied by Congress to do so.) California has a new law in place that requires baby food makers to test for heavy metals and make the results public, but that policy does not apply to infant formula.
Lack of federal standards aside, however, heavy metals are really not an infant formula problem, they are a food system problem. Even if you made your own baby formula (which every health body warns against doing), even if you made all your own baby food, your baby would face some level (and maybe even a higher level) of heavy metals exposure because these elements are both naturally occurring, and we’ve so thoroughly polluted the environment. (Remember leaded gasoline? Yikes). Of course, most parents would agree that rigorous limits for heavy metals make sense — we should be doing everything we can to limit exposure during such a critical developmental period.
Stepped up testing: The FDA also said this week that it has increased testing for heavy metals in infant formula.
“As part of the FDA’s ongoing monitoring of contaminants in infant formula, the agency is conducting a targeted survey of infant formula,” said an FDA spokesperson. “The agency is currently testing approximately 340 samples of a variety of infant formulas, including powdered, concentrate, and ready-to-drink infant formulas, for contaminants including arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury. To date, FDA has completed testing of 221/340 samples, which do not indicate that the contaminants are present in infant formula at levels that would trigger a public health concern. The FDA will release results of the survey after completion.”
In defense of seed oils: The RFK Jr. infant formula confab at HHS this week also comes as wellness influencers and others have grown increasingly critical of seed oils — a category that includes canola, soybean and sunflower oils among others — which also happen to be a crucial ingredient in infant formula. Most nutrition scientists recommend seed oils over animal fats for cardiovascular health, but Kennedy and many others in the MAHA movement have repeatedly criticized seed oils as unhealthy, citing concerns about inflammation. Kennedy recently gave Steak ‘n’ Shake a primetime Fox News endorsement because they switched to frying their french fries in beef tallow (purists however are peeved the fries are still coated in seed oils, but I digress). The secretary also recently raised the use of seed oils in infant formula during a White House meeting with “MAHA moms” last week, as I reported on Tuesday.
But infant formula makers delivered an unambiguous message to Kennedy and other HHS staff during the meeting this week, per sources familiar: Seed oils are not only safe for infant formula, but they are essential for mimicking the fatty acid profile of breast milk — and there is currently no alternative to using them. The FDA currently requires seed oils as an ingredient to ensure the right profile of fats for brain and immune system development.
Infant formula executives were also clear on this point, which is often lost: European and other foreign formulas, sometimes seen as superior in the eyes of American moms, also use seed oils.
Attention is good: While the whole seed oils debate makes everyone in infant formula land nervous, just about everyone I talked to about Operation Stork Speed praised the announcement (which by the way did not mention seed oils, much to the relief of everyone involved). The general feeling is that more attention on infant formula — an important but often ignored sector — is a good thing.
I called up Steven Abrams, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Texas at Austin, to ask him about all of this. Abrams is one of the top infant formula experts in the country.
“Big picture is it’s a good thing,” Abrams said. “Small picture is that there’s some challenges with implementation … there’s much here that goes beyond FDA’s capacity with limited staffing.” Abrams explained that updating the nutrients required for infant formula may make sense. DHA (an omega-3 fatty acid present in breast milk) is required in Europe, but not in the U.S., though it is now widely included (levels vary), and there’s more science coming out about other bioactives like human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs), for example, but requiring bioactives in infant formula would meaningfully increase the cost of production and potentially have huge implications for the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, which purchases formula for roughly half of all infants. Such a change could also demand new supply chains, which are already quite fragile.
“They need to create a comprehensive federal advisory panel on infant nutrition,” Abrams said. “There’s a lot of different pieces here.”
Laura Modi, CEO of Bobbie, the only upstart company to join the HHS meeting this week, struck a similar tone about Operation Stork Speed. I asked her if the overall attention was a good thing.
“100 percent,” Modi said. “Bobbie was born on the back of wanting to see some upleveled changes. … Where I get disheartened is that I think there’s a lot of misconceptions and myths about U.S. infant formula.”
“Two things can be true at the same time,” she said. “The first thing that is true is that all U.S. infant formula is safe and nutritious and if you’re feeding your baby it today, they will thrive. And there’s also room to improve. Those two things can coexist together.”
While seed oils are essential for making infant formula, Modi told me she would like to see more conversation about how oil processing can be improved.
Treading carefully: The Trump administration is keenly aware of the public health risk and political liability of having any disruption in the infant formula supply in the wake of the 2022 shortage, which was bad and lasted a very long time. (Jim Jones, the former deputy commissioner for human foods at FDA, told me that it was the very first thing he was asked about by transition officials.) I expect that FDA will tread very carefully with this sector, even if most everyone welcomes a fresh look at it.
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What I’m reading
FDA puts food safety rule on hold (Food Safety News). “The FDA is delaying enforcement of the Food Traceability Rule, which has been in the works for 14 years, by another 30 months,” reports Coral Beach. “In an announcement on March 20, the Food and Drug Administration said it intends to publish a proposed rule ‘at a later time.’ The rule has already been published and approved and was set to go into effect Jan. 1, 2026. The rule was mandated by the Food Safety Modernization Act, which Congress approved in 2010. The food industry has been pushing back against the rule since before it was written, citing expenses. Industry groups applauded the FDA’s postponement of enforcement of the rule. Consumer groups and former FDA and USDA food safety officials reacted to the announcement of the delay of enforcement of the rule with concern.” “It’s clear that the decision placed the interests of a few industry trade groups and lobbyists over that of our real bosses — the American consumer,” said Frank Yiannas, former deputy under secretary for food policy and response at FDA.
UPSIDE Foods engages in restructuring to stay ‘agile and efficient’ (AgFunderNews). “Cultivated meat pioneer UPSIDE Foods has engaged in a new round of layoffs as part of a restructure,” reports Elaine Watson. “In a statement to AgFunderNews, a spokesperson said: ‘We’ve reorganized our team and operations to focus on commercialization and scale while staying agile and efficient to meet any challenges ahead.’ The spokesperson confirmed that there had been layoffs but did not provide any numbers or further detail on the reorganization. The move follows layoffs in February and July 2024 at the firm, which has paused plans to build a large-scale facility in Glenview, Illinois, in favor of expanding its smaller ‘EPIC’ site in Emeryville, California. With private funding almost drying up in 2024 with a couple of exceptions and key players warning that the sector could struggle to survive without a massive influx of public money, cultivated meat startups are currently swimming in troubled waters. Political sentiment is also souring in the US, with several states either banning cultivated meat (Florida, Mississippi, Alabama) or seeking to, while HHS secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. has made it clear he’s not in favor. AgFunder data shows that funding for cultivated meat startups peaked at $989 million in 2021, dipped to $807 million in 2022 and then fell to $177 million in 2023.”
Kennedy’s alarming prescription for bird flu on poultry farms (New York Times). “Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s top health official, has an unorthodox idea for tackling the bird flu bedeviling U.S. poultry farms. Let the virus rip,” writes Apoorva Mandavilli. “Instead of culling birds when the infection is discovered, farmers ‘should consider maybe the possibility of letting it run through the flock so that we can identify the birds, and preserve the birds, that are immune to it,’ Mr. Kennedy said recently on Fox News. Mr. Kennedy does not have jurisdiction over farms. But Brooke Rollins, the agriculture secretary, also has voiced support for the notion. ‘There are some farmers that are out there that are willing to really try this on a pilot as we build the safe perimeter around them to see if there is a way forward with immunity,’ Ms. Rollins told Fox News last month. Yet veterinary scientists said letting the virus sweep through poultry flocks unchecked would be inhumane and dangerous, and have enormous economic consequences. ‘That’s a really terrible idea, for any one of a number of reasons,’ said Dr. Gail Hansen, a former state veterinarian for Kansas. Every infection is another opportunity for the virus, called H5N1, to evolve into a more virulent form. Geneticists have been tracking its mutations closely; so far, the virus has not developed the ability to spread among people. But if H5N1 were to be allowed to run through a flock of five million birds, ‘that’s literally five million chances for that virus to replicate or to mutate,’ Dr. Hansen said.”
Union says USDA line speed waivers will harm workers (KFGO). “USDA on Monday announced new waivers to increase line speeds in poultry and pork plants,” writes Rusty Halvorson. “Stuart Appelbaum, President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), which represents over 15,000 poultry workers at facilities across the southern United States, as well as meatpacking and processing workers in other parts of the country issued the following statement: ‘Increased line speeds will hurt workers – it’s not a maybe, it’s a definite – and increased production speeds will jeopardize the health and safety of every American that eats chicken. Today’s announcement by the USDA and Secretary Rollins echoes the same lack of consideration they had for our essential food processing workers during the first Trump administration and it will put us all at risk. We rely on the thousands of workers to safely produce the food on our tables every single day, they can’t do that safely at these speeds – we learned that lesson the hard way just five short years ago – let’s not irreparably injure workers to learn what we already know.’”
The MAHA challenge: Can it lead to a healthier and safer food supply? (FDA Matters). “Let us agree at the outset that food policy and regulation is too important to be ignored. Nothing else is such a ubiquitous part of our lives,” writes Steven Grossman. “So, I am fully committed to the value of a major government initiative to improve our food system. It should advance all three of FDA’s primary food responsibilities: assuring a safe food supply; protecting us from any harmful food chemicals (additives); and furthering research and educating Americans to eat nutritiously. So far, HHS Secretary Kennedy’s MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) Initiative is off to a fast start. … As a movement, MAHA is relatively young, so it is a particularly good time to raise questions that need to be addressed. Here are two of mine: Does MAHA Include Continued Support and Investment in a Safe Food Supply? [and] Will MAHA Incorporate Both Supply and Demand Approaches to Achieving Healthier Foods? Realistically, we need the food industry to offer healthier foods…and we need consumers to purchase healthier foods. Focusing just on businesses (supply) or consumers (demand) will not move the needle.”
Will local food survive Trump’s USDA? (Civil Eats). “In November, after months of finishing complicated paperwork, developing infrastructure, and building relationships, the pieces were finally in place for Emma Jagoz to start fulfilling a new contract to sell fresh fruits and vegetables to Maryland schools,” writes Lisa Held. “All of it was enabled by a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) initiative called the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program, which had active contracts in 43 states and was meant to make it easier for schools to serve students fresh food from small farms. The USDA had also funded a related initiative set up to move local farm harvests into food banks, called the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program. The agency had invested more than $1 billion in the two programs since 2020 and was queued up to spend another $1 billion. Last week, President Trump’s Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, canceled both. … Under President Biden, the USDA became a primary funder, expanding a suite of programs that support regional food systems from seed to processing to plate. Just two months into the Trump administration, that steadily growing ecosystem of producers, processors, and distributors is being bulldozed. USDA’s cancellation of the Local Food for Schools and Local Food Purchase Assistance programs has garnered headlines, but they are just two of more than a dozen programs supporting small farms and regional food infrastructure that have been impacted.”
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