A new consumer lawsuit accuses Kraft Heinz, PepsiCo and other food giants of engineering ultraprocessed products to be addictive, borrowing legal strategy from cases against Big Tobacco and opioid makers.
The lawsuits keep coming, and this one matters because it shifts the fight from city hall to the checkout aisle. A new consumer action against Kraft Heinz, PepsiCo and other packaged food giants accuses them of engineering products to be addictive and concealing the health risks — and unlike the government cases that preceded it, this one puts shoppers themselves in the plaintiff's chair. As reported by Food Dive, the suit accuses the companies of marketing ultraprocessed products to consumers, including children, while downplaying links to chronic disease. That shift is what makes this a watershed moment: it's the first real test of whether private buyers, not just attorneys general, can force the industry to answer for how its products are designed.
The legal theory borrows directly from the playbook used against Big Tobacco and opioid manufacturers: that companies knowingly sold products designed to hook users.
The conventional defense from the industry has long been personal responsibility. People choose what they eat. Plaintiffs are arguing the choice architecture itself is rigged, with formulations tuned to override satiety signals and keep consumers reaching for the next bite.
University of Michigan psychology professor Ashley Gearhardt, who studies food addiction, has described ultraprocessed foods as overwhelming to the senses in ways that make them difficult to resist.
The consumer suit lands in a year that has already reshaped how courts and regulators talk about packaged food. In December 2025, San Francisco city attorney David Chiu filed the nation's first government lawsuit against ultraprocessed food makers, naming Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Kraft Heinz, Mondelez, General Mills, Nestlé USA, Kellogg, Mars, ConAgra and Post Holdings as defendants.
According to The Guardian, that city case argued that local governments are stuck paying the medical bills for diseases tied to products engineered for overconsumption. The new consumer action picks up that thread and runs it directly at the manufacturers on behalf of shoppers — a crucial expansion, because it means damages would flow to individuals rather than municipal budgets.
The science the plaintiffs are leaning on has gotten harder to wave away. Multiple studies have linked ultraprocessed foods to harm in major organ systems and to elevated risk for cancer, type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease, depression and cognitive decline, with growing focus on corporate formulation choices rather than individual willpower.
Ultraprocessed foods now make up a significant portion of the U.S. food supply, and children get a substantial share of their calories from these products. Those numbers are why the legal theory keeps gaining traction: at that level of market saturation, "choice" starts to look like a thin defense. It's also why this consumer suit has a real chance of surviving the motions to dismiss that buried earlier food-industry challenges — the evidentiary base has caught up with the argument. For background on how we got here, VegOut has previously covered San Francisco's landmark lawsuit, which set the stage for the current consumer action.
The defendants are likely to argue, as they have in past cases, that their products are safe when consumed as part of a balanced diet and that regulators, not courts, should set the rules. Expect motions to dismiss before any of this reaches a jury.
What makes this moment different from earlier food-industry fights is the convergence. Public health researchers, state legislatures, city attorneys and now private plaintiffs are working from the same evidence base. California has begun pulling certain additives from school meals and moving toward clearer regulation of ultraprocessed ingredients. That alignment is precisely what made the tobacco settlements possible, and it's why the industry's usual defenses are about to face their hardest stress test yet.
For the curiously conscious shopper, the takeaway isn't a moral panic about the freezer aisle. It's that the cost structure of cheap, hyper-palatable food has always been hidden somewhere, whether in healthcare spending, lost productivity, or the slow accumulation of chronic disease. Lawsuits like this one are an attempt to put a number on it — and to hand the bill back to the companies that engineered the problem.
Whether the courts agree that ultraprocessed ingredients meet the legal definition of addictive is the question that will define the next phase of food litigation. The answer will shape what shows up on shelves, what gets marketed to kids, and how much room companies have to keep selling the heavy metal concert.
