The food and beverage industry is gearing up for a fight as more states take aim at ultraprocessed foods, artificial dyes and other ingredients. A newly formed group called Americans for Ingredient Transparency (AIT) — backed by companies like Coca‑Cola, Kraft Heinz and Nestlé — says disruptive state laws are creating confusion and higher grocery costs.
According to Food Dive, in a launch video, AIT declared: “This patchwork of state laws creates confusion for consumers and limits our choices, it drives up our costs at the grocery store, and hurts our small businesses … A clear, national ingredient and labeling law fixes that.” States are indeed moving fast: at least 35 states introduced 93 bills related to food additives during this session, with 10 laws already signed.
Among those laws are West Virginia’s ban on foods containing artificial dyes and a recent Texas law requiring warning labels on certain additive-rich products. AIT isn’t just fighting existing laws — it has three major goals: reforming the GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) program for new ingredients, instituting a front-of-package nutrition label, and adding QR codes to packaging for ingredient transparency.
But consumer advocacy groups are sounding alarms. Consumer Reports’ director of food policy, Brian Ronholm, said the association’s real aim is “to wipe out all of the state laws that protect consumers from harmful chemical ingredients in food and hold the industry accountable.”
With states advancing ingredient-focused legislation and the industry pushing back with national standards, the next few months may reshape how ingredients and labels are regulated across the U.S.
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