San Francisco Sues Food Giants Over “Addictive” Processed Foods

FRIDAY, Dec. 5, 2025 (HealthDay News) — San Francisco is taking some of the country’s biggest food companies to court, claiming they knowingly sold ultraprocessed foods that harm health and are designed to keep people eating more.

The lawsuit, announced Tuesday, argues that products like sugary drinks, packaged snacks and processed meals have fueled rising rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other illnesses in the city and across the nation.

"We have reached a tipping point in the scientific research about the harm of these products," San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said at a news conference. "These products in our diets are deeply linked to serious health conditions, imposing enormous costs on millions of Americans and cities and states across our country."

The suit was filed in San Francisco County Superior Court and targets 10 major companies, including:

• Kraft Heinz

• PepsiCo

• General Mills

• Mars Inc.

• The Coca-Cola Company

• Nestle USA

• Kellogg

• Post Holdings

• Mondelez International

• ConAgra Brands

The lawsuit claims these companies used aggressive marketing to promote foods that contain high levels of sugar, salt, unhealthy fats and chemical additives, even though research has linked these products to chronic disease and shorter life expectancy.

Ultraprocessed foods generally include packaged snacks, flavored chips, sugary cereals, soft drinks and ready-to-eat meals.

"About 75% to 80% of what children eat comes from these ultraprocessed foods, and 55% to 60% of what adults consume come from them," Barry Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina, said to NBC News.

"You can’t compare how people ate during and right after World War II and in the decades before with how we’re eating now," Popkin added.

Some nutrition researchers say the lawsuit could be a turning point.

Laura Schmidt, a professor at the University of California San Francisco, told NBC News that "Up until now, it has felt like watching a train wreck in slow motion. I've been talking about childhood diabetes for a couple decades now. The rates have continued to go up. Childhood fatty liver disease, childhood obesity — we've known for a long time there was something very wrong with this part of the food supply."

She compared the action to lawsuits filed against the tobacco industry decades ago.

Not everyone agrees, however.

"There is currently no agreed upon scientific definition of ultra-processed foods and attempting to classify foods as unhealthy simply because they are processed, or demonizing food by ignoring its full nutrient content, misleads consumers and exacerbates health disparities," Sarah Gallo, senior vice president of product policy at the Consumer Brands Association, told NBC News.

The case comes as ultraprocessed foods face increasing criticism from the government.

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has publicly linked these products to chronic disease and plans to remove artificial dyes and additives from the food supply as part of his “Make America Healthy Again” plan.

Health experts continue to warn that ultraprocessed foods are shaping the nation’s health.

"We’re unhealthy. The diet has a huge amount to do with that. We stopped smoking, we’ve got cholesterol drugs, we’ve got drugs to handle heart disease, hypertension and so forth, but the food is killing us,” Popkin said. “The most reputable, the most cited of all the medical journals out there felt that this was a subject worth presenting to the world."

More information

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has more on ultraprocessed foods.

SOURCE: NBC News, Dec. 2, 2025

What This Means For You

San Francisco has sued major food companies, claiming ultraprocessed foods harm health and cause disease.