Research
Talking points: Tracking the MAHA agenda – The FDA glacier is on the move
The FDA is fast-tracking food reform under the MAHA agenda - targeting dyes, sugar, and labels. This shift aligns with consumer trends and opens market opportunities.
While the Trump administration's on-again, off-again tariff policy may be grabbing most of the headlines, in the food world, the groundwork for the Trump administration's Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda is also being laid out. Here are four things to note:
1) The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) glacier is on the move – Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is eager to transform the FDA to help drive change in the food industry.
2) Artificial dyes were already on their way out – The MAHA agenda is attempting to accelerate long-established consumer trends toward cleaner labels and more natural food ingredients. Advocating for the removal of synthetic colors is the first step in initiating bigger changes.
3) Kennedy has added sugar to his hit list – Let this sink in. For the first time ever, we now have a health secretary who believes that “sugar is poison” and thinks we should not be consuming any added sugars. What were once considered fringe ideas have now been drawn into the very heart of government policy making.
4) There are opportunities for food companies – Replacing synthetic dyes with natural equivalents is estimated to be at least a USD 2bn opportunity for food ingredient suppliers and agricultural producers of natural colorants.