Lobbying Groups Are Coming for RFK Jr.’s Fight to Regulate Food Additives

This was supposed to be the year Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. acted to clean up the nation’s food — perhaps the most unifying issue of his Make America Healthy Again movement.

Groups all along the United States’ food supply chain are working to stop that from happening, highlighting the harsh reality of enacting Kennedy’s vision on a range of food policies, from defining “ultra-processed” to removing dyes to regulating additives.

Nutrition advocates are now worried the intensified lobbying effort will threaten Kennedy’s chance to take a big swing at processed foods.

“We are concerned we are going to see not a big swing but some smaller incremental change,” said Thomas Galligan, the principal scientist for food additives and supplements at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Much of the lobbying effort has been focused on what companies can self-certify as “generally recognized as safe,” or GRAS — a designation that allows them to bring products to market much quicker. MAHA activists and consumer advocates say the loophole allows Americans to be exposed to potentially harmful ingredients without sufficient oversight.

“We don’t need those chemicals in the food supply,” said Zen Honeycutt, a MAHA activist and the founder of the group Moms Across America.

After Kennedy directed the Food and Drug Administration to explore closing the GRAS loophole in March 2025, the number of trade associations, companies and organizations that reported lobbying on the pending regulation have nearly tripled, according to a NOTUS analysis of federal lobbying disclosures.

In-house and hired lobbyists for 35 organizations — from food chemical suppliers to packagers and manufacturers — disclosed lobbying specifically on GRAS reform during the first quarter of 2026, up from 12 during the same period in 2025 and one during the same period in 2024.

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Most of those groups either didn’t respond to a request for comment or directed NOTUS to Americans for Ingredient Transparency, a coalition the food industry launched last fall to oppose state food regulations and influence federal efforts.

AFIT paid the Russell Group $240,000 between August 2025 and March, including $170,000 in the first quarter of this year, to lobby on “issues pertaining to ingredient transparency,” according to its quarterly lobbying disclosures.

AFIT and the Consumer Brands Association — another influential group that represents packaged good manufacturers — insist they’re not against reforming GRAS.

Instead, they’ve rallied around draft legislation from Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Florida) that, while narrowing the loophole by requiring companies to notify regulators of GRAS ingredients, also favors industry interests.

“I’m not surprised they are trying to give the impression they’re in favor of reform,” Galligan said.

A discussion draft of Cammack’s bill wouldn’t mandate an FDA review before foods with GRAS ingredients go to market. It would also retroactively approve ingredients currently considered GRAS and nullify state food-additive laws, which have surged this year as MAHA activists sought food safety reforms around the country.

“With this reform, Americans no matter where they live get clear and consistent information about the ingredients in their foods and beverages while keeping costs affordable,” AFIT senior advisor Andy Koenig, who worked in the White House during Trump’s first term, told NOTUS in a statement.

Kennedy took the helm of HHS last year with ambitious promises to crack down on the ultra-processed food he blames for the nation’s epidemic of obesity and chronic disease. His administration revamped the federal nutrition guidelines earlier this year and extracted promises from a handful of large food companies to remove dyes from their products.

Other food initiatives he’s advocated for have stalled.

The White House has been reviewing the FDA’s proposed GRAS regulation for six months and has yet to release a federal definition of ultra-processed food, which Kennedy had promised would be ready in April and wants to link to a new food label on the front of packages.

Nor has the FDA responded to a petition filed last August by former Commissioner David Kessler calling on the agency to legally strip refined carbohydrates like high fructose corn syrup from the American food supply.

“Stand by,” is all Kennedy said last week when asked when to expect movement on GRAS and an ultra-processed food definition.

If his agency does follow through, it will be against stiff industry resistance. FDA and the Department of Agriculture received more than 5,000 comments to their request for information on ultra-processed foods. Industry groups don’t want states to define it , which they say would create an untenable patchwork, but they don’t want a federal definition, either.

“A definition, overall, whether it’s federal or state by state, is problematic,” said Rhonda Bentz, the executive vice president of public affairs for the Consumer Brands Association.

Some of the very companies that voluntarily committed last year to remove food dyes from their products are pushing back against GRAS reform.

Four of them, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola and Keurig Dr Pepper, met with FDA officials on the GRAS reforms, according to meeting records. Sylvester Mosley, who represented Coca-Cola, helped manage the review process of GRAS substances while he was at the FDA from 2008 to 2016.

Two others, General Mills and Kraft Heinz, didn’t individually meet officials, but are members of the Consumer Brands Association , which did meet with the FDA.

Last month, the FDA quietly updated a web page to say it wouldn’t expect the companies to fulfill their promises until one year later than originally promised, at the end of 2027.

Industry sources say they expect the FDA to issue the GRAS rule and an ultra-processed food definition jointly. The agency has been in the midst of recent turmoil, as former Commissioner Marty Makary was fired by the White House in April and temporarily replaced by acting Commissioner Kyle Diamantas.

An FDA spokesperson said the administration is “driving forward” both initiatives “to strengthen food safety, increase transparency about what’s in our food and give Americans the information they need to make healthier choices and make America healthy again.”

Congress created the GRAS exemption in 1958 to cover common ingredients like oils, vinegar, baking soda and spices that had long been recognized as safe. FDA proposed a separate voluntary notification process in 1997 to relieve its petition backlog.

Consumer advocates say they fear the administration will shy away from a wholesale closing of the GRAS loophole, which Kennedy had originally wanted. The industry argues that requiring the FDA to actively review the GRAS information submitted by companies would be an onerous burden for an understaffed agency.

Maria Doa, senior director for chemical policy at the Environmental Defense Fund, said it looks like the regulation will stop short of that.

“If that’s the extent of it, that doesn’t go far enough,” Doa said.