San Francisco Sues Major Food Companies Over Ultra-Processed Products, Citing Health Crisis

The lawsuit alleges companies engineered addictive ultra-processed foods despite known health risks, pushing costs onto public systems and taxpayers.

Boxes of PepsiCo's Frito-Lay Flamin' Hot flavored snacks including Cheetos, Fritos, Doritos tortilla chips, and Funyuns are displayed alongside packaged foods for sale at a warehouse grocery store in Hawthorne, Calif., on Dec. 2, 2025. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images

San Francisco has filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against some of the country’s largest food and beverage manufacturers, accusing them of engineering and aggressively marketing ultra-processed foods they knew were making Americans sick in order to boost profits.

The complaint, filed on Dec. 2 in San Francisco Superior Court, targets nearly a dozen major corporations, including Kraft Heinz, Mondelēz International, Post Holdings, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, General Mills, Nestle USA, Kellanova, WK Kellogg, Mars, and Conagra Brands. It alleges that the companies’ ultra-processed food products have fueled epidemics of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers while saddling governments with soaring health care costs.