Food and beverage companies, trade groups and associated plaintiffs mounted 239 legal challenges to public-health nutrition policies in six countries between 2010 and 2025, according to an investigation led by Lighthouse Reports with academic and media partners.
The project examined disputes in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, India, the United Kingdom and the United States. The targeted measures included front-of-package labels, restrictions on advertising unhealthy products to children, soda taxes and levies on ultra-processed food. Researchers calculated that the cases together represented 595 years of litigation, a measure of the cumulative time governments spent defending the policies.
More than one-third of the cases brought by identifiable private companies came from nine parent groups, led by Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Mondelez, the investigation reported. The companies have argued in litigation that some regulations violate legal or constitutional rights. The project contends that repeated challenges can delay policies, consume public resources and discourage governments with limited capacity from pursuing further regulation.
The reporting team built a dataset from official legal databases, court records and reputable secondary sources. It generally included cases contesting the validity, reach or implementation of measures intended to improve nutrition. Cases involving only fresh-produce businesses and appeals of unrelated penalties were excluded. India was treated differently because the dataset included litigation against influencers who were making products' nutritional characteristics more visible.
Mexico accounted for 193 of the 239 cases, many involving labeling rules. The investigation says some plaintiffs argued that labels unfairly demonized products or infringed consumer rights, and notes that judges rejected many of those arguments.
Brazil had 17 identified cases, including 11 involving the national health regulator, ANVISA. All but one were brought by industry associations, according to the project. Some had remained unresolved for close to two decades. In Colombia, researchers found 18 cases, mostly concerning health taxes and front-of-package labels. Many constitutional petitions were filed by individual citizens, but the investigation linked several of the lawyers involved to previous work for food companies.
In the United States, the project highlighted an American Beverage Association effort to overturn a soda tax in Santa Cruz, California. The challenge had not succeeded at the time described by the source, and the city's result could affect the authority of other California charter cities to impose similar taxes.
The totals originate with the investigative collaboration and should be understood within its inclusion rules; the supplied packet does not contain responses from every company or association named. The project involved researchers from the University of Caldas, the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Center, the University of São Paulo and the University of Sydney, and built on work by several health-policy organizations.
Its central finding is that nutrition policy is shaped not only in legislatures and regulatory agencies but also through prolonged court disputes. By publishing a cross-country count, the investigators seek to show the accumulated institutional cost of challenges that can otherwise appear as isolated national cases.
