The debate about ultra-processed foods is loud in America right now, but zoom out, and it's everywhere. Governments around the world are trying to figure out what to do about diet-related disease, and the food and beverage industry is under pressure at every turn.

Rocco Renaldi is secretary general of the International Food and Beverage Alliance, the group that brings together some of the world's biggest multinational food companies — Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Mondelēz — for coordinated action on nutrition and public health. He's also an executive at Edelman and is based in Brussels, which gives him a vantage point on these debates that we don’t hear as much stateside.

Highlights:

– Why the industry sees the UPF debate as a threat to the work already done on product reformulation

– What the science does and doesn't tell us about processing as a health risk

– Whether a workable, science-based UPF definition is even possible, and who's likely to define it first

– How voluntary commitments like global trans fat elimination and salt reduction are going

– What MAHA and RFK Jr.'s rhetoric look like from Brussels

– GLP-1 drugs as a market force versus warning labels as a policy tool

Where to find Rocco Renaldi:

International Food and Beverage Alliance (IFBA)

Mentioned in this episode:

NOVA food classification system — the processing-based framework at the center of the UPF debate

What we still don't know about ultra-processed foods with Julia Belluz & Kevin Hall — my earlier conversation with the NIH researcher who studied ultra-processed foods in controlled settings

California's work on UPF definitions in school meals — the state's ongoing effort to restrict the most harmful ultra-processed foods from school food programs

Stay in touch:

Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix.

Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube.

Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.co

Check out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network.

Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz. Original music by David Bottemiller.

Schools are the largest restaurant chain in America, bigger than Subway, Starbucks, and McDonald's combined. Nearly 100,000 locations, 30 million kids, and roughly 7 billion meals a year. Right now, the lion’s share of the calories served through this system are ultra-processed at a time when there’s growing concern about chronic diseases among children.

Nora LaTorre is the CEO of Eat Real, a nonprofit that's transforming school meals scale — certifying school districts against doctor-developed standards and helping food service leaders pivot to fresher, more local, more scratch-cooked food. Since 2019, the organization has grown from one district in one state to more than a million kids across 21 states. This expansion has put LaTorre and her organization at the center of an active debate about what the future of school meals should look like in the U.S.

Highlights:

– How Eat Real's certification model works and what the two-year journey looks like for school districts

– Why better food means more kids eat school lunch (which means more revenue)

– The story behind California's AB 1264, which passed with near-unanimous bipartisan support

– LaTorre’s take on how federal preemption is a serious threat to food policy progress

– What the MAHA moment means for school food

– What parents can do to support change at their local school

– The infrastructure gap: transforming school food nationally could require tens of billions in kitchen investment

Where to find Nora LaTorre:

Eat Real

Parent resources at eatreal.org/parents

Follow Nora on Instagram (@nourishedwithnora) and LinkedIn

Mentioned in this episode:

AB 1264 — California's school food bill

Stay in touch:

Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix.

Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube.

Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.co

Check out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network.

Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz. Original music by David Bottemiller.

HHS Secretary Kennedy says the food industry is poisoning us. The White House shares AI videos of him body slamming a Twinkie. And somehow, the trade group representing the companies making those ultra-processed foods — and thousands of other products Americans buy every day — has to figure out how to respond.

The Consumer Brands Association represents the CPG industry, not just food and beverage, but household products and personal care too. It's the largest manufacturing sector in the U.S. by employment — 22.3 million workers, contributing $2.3 trillion to the GDP. And right now, it's contending with one of the most hostile political environments it's ever faced.

Melissa Hockstad, the president and CEO of CBA, is at the center of navigating all of this. She's talking about constructive engagement, transparency, and the long game as major food companies try to stay out of the political wrestling ring, at least publicly.

Highlights:

– How CBA is approaching the Trump administration's anti-Big Food rhetoric, and where they see room for common ground

– The Facts Up Front and SmartLabel programs, and why the industry sees transparency on its own terms as a selling point

–How MAHA laws in Texas, West Virginia, and beyond have the industry turning to the courts and to Congress

– Why CBA thinks "ultra-processed foods" is too complex to define, and what that means for policy

– Front-of-pack labeling: where the Biden-era proposed rule stands now and what to expect from FDA under the Trump administration

– The affordability argument is not landing the way the industry hoped at the state level

Where to find Melissa Hockstad:

Follow Melissa Hockstad on LinkedIn

Mentioned in this episode:

Consumer Brands Association

Facts Up Front

SmartLabel

Stay in touch:

Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix.

Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube.

Send ideas and feedback to info@foodfix.co

Check out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network.

Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz. Original music by David Bottemiller.