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PORTSIDE CULTURE

‘IF ALL ELSE FAILS, SUE’: HOW ULTRA-PROCESSED FOOD FIRMS ARE
USING THE COURTS TO OBSTRUCT HEALTH RULES  
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Andrew Gregory, Thin Lei Win and Emmanuel Freudenthal
July 22, 2026
The Guardian
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_ The world’s biggest ultra-processed food companies are taking
governments to court to overturn, weaken or delay government policies
that tackle junk diets. _

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Exclusive: Global investigation reveals 235 lawsuits have been brought
against governments in five countries since 2010

The world’s biggest ultra-processed food companies have filed scores
of lawsuits challenging government policies that tackle junk diets,
the Guardian can reveal.

Ultra-processed food (UPF) is linked to harm in every major organ
system of the human body and poses a seismic threat to global health
[[link removed]].
Worldwide consumption is rising and UPF now makes up as much as half
the average diet in many countries, including the UK, the US and
Australia.

Governments around the world have adopted measures to fight back and
safeguard the health of children and adults. Among the regulations are
front-of-pack warning labels, marketing restrictions on unhealthy
products to make them less alluring and taxes on junk food.

Publicly, the world’s biggest UPF companies insist they support the
policies, are committed to helping consumers make informed choices and
want to be part of the solution.

But an investigation by the Guardian, in collaboration with academics,
the non-profit newsroom Lighthouse Reports
[[link removed]]and a coalition of media partners
across four continents, found many of these same companies are taking
governments to court to overturn, weaken or delay the policies.

In total, 235 lawsuits were lodged over health policies targeting UPF
in Mexico [[link removed]], Colombia,
Brazil, the US and the UK from 2010 to 2025, the investigation found.

It is not clear who is behind every lawsuit. However, three-quarters
were filed by UPF manufacturers or trade associations representing
them, the investigation found. Some of the corporations involved in
the legal cases, which can be revealed for the first time, requested
courts withhold their names.

Of the cases filed by companies where the plaintiff was identifiable,
38% were brought by eight parent corporations: Coca-Cola
[[link removed]], PepsiCo, Mondelēz,
Kellogg’s, Danone, Ferrero, Xignux and Heartland Food Products
Group.

Dozens of cases are ongoing. Of those that have been resolved,
three-quarters were lost by the food giants. But the length of some of
the legal battles added up to almost 600 years in court, the
investigation found.

Some of the ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits delayed the adoption of
vital public health policies for years, while also tying up government
and public health officials in complex and expensive litigation.

In the meantime, the lawsuits are prolonging the growing global public
health crisis, and costing countries billions in legal and healthcare
costs, experts say.

While governments are being sued over policies aimed at tackling
unhealthy diets, the amount of UPF consumed continues to expand,
contributing to rising cases of obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart
disease, mental ill health and other conditions.

The world’s biggest UPF firms would “not fight so hard” if
policies to curb intake of their products were ineffective, said
Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public
health at New York University. “The lawsuits tell us that public
health measures reduce sales of unhealthful products.”

While the majority of cases were eventually won by governments,
experts said the intensive litigation by UPF companies suggested other
objectives: slowing down the implementation of laws, limiting the
desire and capacity of countries to enact other public health measures
and chilling regulators.

The tactics mirrored those used by the tobacco industry for decades,
Nestle said, adding: “Food companies are well trained. They follow
the tobacco industry playbook to the letter. When all else fails,
sue.”

Litigation by tobacco companies is well documented. They have
repeatedly sued governments over laws mandating that colourful,
branded cigarette packs be replaced with plain ones displaying
prominent health warnings, including graphic pictures of rotting
teeth, diseased organs and cancerous tumours.

Although the tobacco lawsuits were also mostly unsuccessful, they
imposed huge stress, workloads and costs on governments trying to turn
the tide on public health.

“The UPF industry appears to be adopting the same strategy,” said
Phillip Baker, an associate professor at the University of Sydney who
studies food systems and the rising global burden of UPF.

“The UPF industry and its affiliates have persistently challenged
front-of-pack warning labels, marketing restrictions and taxation
through the courts, concentrated in the years immediately following
each policy’s adoption.

“That courts have upheld public health regulation in the large
majority of resolved cases is an encouraging signal. But the continued
volume of litigation, the years-long duration of some proceedings, and
the opacity surrounding a substantial share of corporate plaintiffs
together indicate that litigation functions as much as, if not more to
delay, deter and constrain as to overturn.”

UPF is made using industrial methods and ingredients not typically
found in shops. It often contains additives like flavourings,
colourings or emulsifiers to make it appear more attractive and
palatable.

Evidence reviewed by 43 of the world’s leading experts and published
in The Lancet journal
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suggested that diets high in UPF are linked to overeating, poor
nutritional quality and higher exposure to harmful chemicals and
additives.

Because they are often cheap, convenient and accessible, they are
rapidly displacing fresh food in diets on every continent. In
response, countries are increasingly adopting policies designed to
curb the harmful effects of UPF.

But these measures have been met with fierce resistance. UPF
corporations are using a range of aggressive tactics to drive
consumption and prevent regulation. These tactics include lobbying
policymakers, launching public-private partnerships and skewering
scientific debate.

Last year, the Guardian revealed that the UK government dropped new
guidance
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urging shops to promote minimally processed and nutritious food after
a lobbying campaign by UPF companies.

In 2024, the Guardian exposed
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how three out of five scientists on an expert panel that suggested UPF
was being unfairly demonised had ties to the world’s largest
manufacturers of the products.

In the first multi-country analysis of its kind, the Guardian and
other media outlets worked with researchers from the Robert and Ethel
Kennedy Human Rights Centre, the University of Sydney, the University
of São Paulo and the University of Caldas to investigate the scale of
the UPF industry’s legal pushback.

The investigation identified 235 lawsuits filed over policies
targeting UPF in Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, the US and the UK between
2010 and 2025. Labelling on food items was the policy that governments
were most sued over, followed by taxes on junk food and marketing
restrictions.

That is not surprising, according to Melissa Mialon, an associate
professor at Inserm, the French national institute of health and
medical research.

She said: “The industry doesn’t want front-of-pack labelling
because it’s a first step toward classifying the products for its
healthiness or not, and then it gets easier to tax them, it gets
easier to put bans on them for marketing and those types of things.”

Most lawsuits were filed in Mexico (193), Colombia (18) and Brazil
(17), the investigation found.

“This makes sense as Latin America has been a global leader in
adopting some of the first strong food environment policies, making it
a key testing ground for both public health innovation and industry
resistance,” said Katherine Shats, a legal specialist in child
nutrition at Unicef.

Mexico is among several countries that have explicitly recommended
avoiding or limiting UPF or “highly processed foods”.

“We saw similar patterns with tobacco control laws, where Australia
faced many lawsuits and challenges when it began to introduce plain
packaging and other effective tobacco control measures,” said Shats.

There were six lawsuits in the US and one in the UK, the investigation
found. Chris van Tulleken, a professor of infection and global health
at University College London and the author of Ultra-Processed People,
said: “The food industry doesn’t need to bother bringing legal
action in the UK very often because our regulations are so shot
through with loopholes and exemptions.

“This is partly because for the last three decades industry has
helped design the rules that regulate unhealthy food so obviously
these regulations aren’t functional.”

The UK policy environment is so deeply embedded with food companies
that there is “complete policy paralysis” because of the threat of
litigation, van Tulleken said. “People in the government are
terrified of these lawsuits.”

“Ultimately, governments need to be bold,” said Shats. “These
measures are about safeguarding children, protecting food systems, and
addressing a food environment that is driving ill health across entire
populations.

“Delaying action due to fear of litigation risks prolonging
preventable harm that is much more difficult and costly to address in
the longer term.”

A Coca-Cola spokesperson said: “We believe public health challenges
are best addressed through collaboration among governments, public
health authorities, the private sector and civil society. We engage
constructively on topics affecting our business and respect the role
each stakeholder plays in advancing public health goals.”

A Ferrero spokesperson said it supported public health objectives
aimed at reducing obesity and diet-related disease. They added:
“Where Ferrero has engaged with different authorities and
regulators, this has concerned clarity around policy implementation
– such as inconsistencies in how comparable products are treated
under the same rule – rather than opposition to public health
objectives.”

A Danone spokesperson said: “We are convinced that businesses should
play a positive role, alongside governments, public health
institutions and other stakeholders, in addressing public health
challenges. We are committed to open dialogue and engaging
constructively with policymakers around the world.”

PepsiCo, Mondelēz [[link removed]],
Kellogg’s, Xignux and Heartland Food Products Group did not respond
to a request for comment.

_This investigation was produced in collaboration with Lighthouse
Reports, Agência Pública (Brazil), Cuestión Pública (Colombia),
Follow the Money (the Netherlands), Il Fatto Alimentare (Italy),
L’Espresso (Italy), O Joio e O Trigo (Brazil), Quinto Elemento Lab
(Mexico), Santa Cruz Local (US) and The Wire (India)_

 

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