Landmark US case seen as “a warning shot” for Ireland and EU food policy.
Earlier this month, the European Commission has recalled consignments of frozen Brazilian beef products imported into the EU, after it was found they contained hormones banned by the bloc.
The banned hormones were detected in shipments that arrived into Europe earlier this month.
Co. Tipperary and Irish public health advocates are calling on the Government and EU institutions to accelerate action on ultra-processed foods (UPFs), following a landmark lawsuit filed this week, by the City of San Francisco against some of the world’s biggest food manufacturers.
And now, a case, taken by San Francisco; the first of its kind brought by a public authority, alleges that companies including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Kraft Heinz, Nestlé and others engineered and aggressively marketed ultra-processed products while knowing they were driving a crisis in obesity and chronic disease, in breach of unfair competition and public nuisance laws.
Various groups promoting healthy diets in Ireland claim that the lawsuit should be “a wake-up call” for Ireland, where research shows ultra-processed foods account for around 45.9% of the average household shopping basket, placing the Irish State in line with the highest consumers in Europe.
What San Francisco is saying, very clearly, is that this is not just about individual willpower, it’s about products and marketing strategies that put profit before people’s health.
Ireland has one of the highest levels of overweight and obesity in Europe. We cannot ignore the role of an increasingly ultra-processed food environment in that picture.
According to the HSE and recent national surveys, around 60% of Irish adults and over one in five children are now living with overweight or obesity.
The San Francisco lawsuit draws heavily on emerging international evidence, including a major Lancet series published last month, which found consistent associations between high UPF intake and increased risks of obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, some cancers, depression and premature death.
The message is that ultra-processed foods are not just empty calories, they are strongly linked with chronic disease across multiple organ systems. Ireland cannot afford to be a bystander while other jurisdictions start to hold industry to account.
While Ireland has introduced measures such as the sugar-sweetened drinks tax and restrictions on marketing high-fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) foods to children, the various groups promoting healthy diets, note that current rules focus mainly on nutrients, not on the degree of processing or the cumulative impact of additives, texture engineering and aggressive branding.
At EU level, the Farm to Fork Strategy includes a commitment to a harmonised, mandatory front-of-pack nutrition label and stronger nutrient profiles to restrict health and nutrition claims on unhealthy products. However, progress has been slow and does not yet directly address ultra-processing as such.
Various groups promoting healthy diets are urging the Irish Government to:
- Back strong EU-wide front-of-pack labelling that is easy to understand and compatible with emerging evidence on UPFs;
- Tighten marketing rules, particularly digital advertising and brand promotions aimed at children, to cover ultra-processed categories rather than just narrow nutrient thresholds;
- Set clear procurement standards so that publicly funded schemes – including school meals, hospitals and other State services – progressively move away from serving ultra-processed products as default options;
- Monitor and report the proportion of the Irish food supply and advertising spend accounted for by ultra-processed products.
Ireland now needs to recognise the same underlying problem: a food system where the cheapest, most available and most heavily promoted options are the very products most closely linked with long-term illness.
People in Ireland now has a choice, to wait and react, or to lead in protecting people’s health.
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