Dive Brief:
- A judge permanently dismissed a lawsuit alleging Kraft-Heinz, PepsiCo and other food giants failed to warn consumers of the risks associated with ultraprocessed products.
- The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ruled plaintiff Brian Martinez could not definitively prove that packaged food products were the reason for his type 2 diabetes and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.
- Martinez had amended his lawsuit, initially filed in December 2024, to include more details about his ultraprocessed food consumption after another judge dismissed an initial complaint last year for being “woefully deficient.” The latest ruling prevents him from amending the lawsuit again.
Dive Insight:
The dismissal is another court win for the packaged food industry as it battles a wave of litigation and state laws centered on the alleged dangers of ultraprocessed ingredients. Over the past year, manufacturers have also successfully blocked labeling laws in Texas and an artificial dye ban in West Virginia.
The ruling also bodes poorly for another closely watched lawsuit against ultraprocessed food manufacturers filed in April of this year. That case, filed in the Eastern District of Wisconsin, also looked to tie a consumer's health issues to ultraprocessed ingredients by including a long list of products consumed over her lifetime.
The Pennsylvania case showed that simply naming ultraprocessed products consumed isn't enough to prove that they caused harm. Martinez amended his complaint to list 179 products he ate throughout his childhood and the frequency with which he consumed them. He claimed that the ingredients in products like Kraft American Cheese drove "internal dysbiosis and systemic inflammation" which affected organ function and desensitized insulin receptor signaling.
The correlation between the rise in UPFs and the rise in childhood diseases like Type 2 Diabetes does not amount to causation in the plaintiff's individual circumstances, the court ruled. Martinez also failed to establish how each of the 179 products listed contributed to his health issues, claiming that all ultraprocessed ingredients caused identical health issues regardless of the frequency of consumption.
In the dismissal, the judge wrote that the plaintiff "raises serious concerns about the UPF industry and its effects on children’s health," but the law does not allow for courts to hold an entire industry liable.
"A plaintiff seeking to hold producers of food liable in tort must show the products they consumed caused the harm they suffered," the judge added. "This creates a unique challenge for plaintiffs, like Martinez, who consume a large number of products over a lengthy period of time."
The National Association Manufacturers celebrated the Pennsylvania ruling, calling the case "a misguided effort to weaponize the tort system against food and beverage manufacturers."
"Baseless and agenda-driven lawsuits do not improve public health or product safety," Linda Kelly, NAM chief legal officer and corporate secretary, said in a statement. "Instead, they create confusion and increase costs for consumers and undermine the regulatory certainty manufacturers need to provide safe and nutritious foods that are affordable and accessible for American families.”
Lawsuits against ultraprocessed food makers have claimed their products are scientifically engineered to be addictive and that companies took a page out of the tobacco industry’s playbook when marketing them to children. While consumer lawsuits are now hitting new roadblocks, food makers still face another major legal test after San Francisco filed the first government lawsuit against the industry.
