A mandatory federal label for ultra-processed foods (UPFs) in the United States could touch nearly three-quarters of packaged foods and cost at least $14.2 billion a year, according to an analysis by researchers at the University of Chicago and its Initiative on Enabling Choice and Competition in Health Care Markets, published on 17 October.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has advocated such labelling. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent a proposed federal definition of ultra-processed foods to the Office of Management and Budget for review on 3 August, as a white paper rather than a formal rule, which limits its legal force but could still shape reformulation, labelling and future food policy.
Because the FDA's definition has not been published, the researchers used one released in May 2026 by Healthy Eating Research, under which a product is ultra-processed if its ingredient list has at least one marker: "cosmetic additives" in 13 functional classes such as flavours, colours, non-sugar sweeteners, emulsifiers and thickeners, or non-culinary ingredients such as industrial carbohydrates, modified fats and industrial proteins. Applied to nearly 450,000 products in the USDA Global Branded Food Products Database, it classed 72.3 percent as ultra-processed. Confectionery, baked sweets, soda, pasta dinners and frozen appetisers were nearly all UPFs; rice and frozen and canned vegetables were the least likely to be.
The researchers put the yearly cost at $9.5 billion to reformulate products so they avoid the label, $4.5 billion for substitute ingredients and $200 million for federal administration, relabelling and classification. They call the estimate a lower bound: it leaves out effects on suppliers, which could include about $1 billion a year in lost revenue for US agriculture and $7.7 to $8.7 billion a year in higher food import costs. Of the $14.2 billion, they estimate $8.1 billion, or $60 per household, would reach consumers through higher prices.
The FDA has described its white paper as not "economically significant", meaning an impact below the $100 million threshold, but the two figures measure different things: the agency's concerns the definition, while the researchers modelled a labelling policy built on it.
The Consumer Brands Association says the analysis also leaves out litigation costs, argues that a definition capturing nearly 80 percent of the food supply is "fundamentally flawed", and questions whether such labels would improve public health at all.
For farmers, the study's supplier estimates are a reminder that how processed food is defined and labelled could change demand for the ingredients they grow.
The analysis was reported by Elizabeth Crawford for FoodNavigator.
Source: FoodNavigator
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