Food marketing lawsuits are accelerating sharply under the MAHA movement, with class action filings against consumer packaged goods companies jumping 58% between 2023 and 2024 to hit a 10-year high. In 2025 alone, more than 200 class-action lawsuits were filed against CPG manufacturers pressing claims about everything from falsely advertised fiber content to undisclosed heavy metals—a legal and regulatory reckoning that is reshaping how companies market food products to American consumers. This surge is driven by an alignment of factors: aggressive state enforcement actions, new regulatory attention from the MAHA Commission, and plaintiffs’ lawyers refining their litigation strategies around increasingly specific health and nutrition claims.
What was once a sporadic legal problem for food companies has become a structural risk. The Poppi prebiotic soda company settled a California class action for $8.9 million in 2024 over falsely promoted fiber claims—a settlement that signaled to plaintiffs’ attorneys exactly which types of claims were vulnerable and profitable to attack. Simultaneously, the MAHA Commission’s May 2025 assessment explicitly named ultra-processed foods and food additives as contributors to “child health crisis” in America, triggering a wave of state investigations and legislative action. This article covers the scope and speed of this litigation wave, the specific claims under attack, what regulatory changes are accelerating lawsuits, and what it means for consumers trying to understand which settlements they may be eligible to join.
Table of Contents
- How Aggressively Are Food Marketing Lawsuits Rising Under MAHA?
- What Are Companies Being Sued For? The Claims Under Attack in 2025
- Government Enforcement Actions Are Amplifying Private Litigation
- The MAHA Commission’s Role in Triggering the Litigation Surge
- Which Marketing Claims Are Most Vulnerable to Litigation?
- Settlement Structures and What Consumers Actually Recover
- What Comes Next—The Future of Food Marketing Litigation
- Conclusion
How Aggressively Are Food Marketing Lawsuits Rising Under MAHA?
Class action litigation against food manufacturers is no longer a niche legal problem—it is now a primary business risk. The 58% jump in filings between 2023 and 2024 built on litigation rates that had already hit a 10-year high in 2021, meaning the legal environment for food companies has deteriorated sharply and consistently over the past four years. In 2025, the trend accelerated further, with over 200 class-action lawsuits filed against the consumer packaged goods industry, primarily targeting nutritional and health claims that plaintiffs’ lawyers can support with independent testing or nutritional databases. The litigation is not random or opportunistic—it is strategic.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys are now targeting companies that make claims about protein content, probiotic benefits, “natural” ingredients, calorie counts, and fiber levels. When a company like David’s protein bar claims a product contains 150 calories and 2 grams of fat, but independent lab testing finds up to 275 calories and 13.5 grams of fat, that discrepancy becomes lawsuit fodder. These are not minor labeling errors; they are material misrepresentations that affect purchasing decisions. The scale of the litigation wave, combined with the specificity of the claims being challenged, suggests that this is not a temporary spike but rather a structural shift in how aggressively plaintiffs’ lawyers and regulators are scrutinizing food marketing.
What Are Companies Being Sued For? The Claims Under Attack in 2025
The litigation targeting food companies clusters around a surprisingly narrow set of marketing claims, which means companies focusing on these categories face the highest legal exposure. Heavy metals—specifically lead, cadmium, mercury, and arsenic—have emerged as a major litigation target, as have false or exaggerated claims about protein content, probiotic benefits, and “natural” or “clean-label” status. In many cases, the false claim is quantifiable: a product advertises 15 grams of protein but contains 10; it claims “no artificial ingredients” but uses synthetic dyes; it markets prebiotic fiber benefits that are either unsubstantiated or present in amounts too small to matter. The Poppi case exemplifies the economics of these lawsuits.
Poppi positioned itself as a “better-for-you” soda brand with prebiotic fiber that supports gut health—a claim that resonated with consumers and justified a premium price. California’s class action alleged these fiber claims were false or misleading, and rather than litigate, Poppi settled for $8.9 million. For a class of potentially hundreds of thousands of consumers, that settlement meant modest compensation per claimant—often $10 to $50 depending on participation rates—but it signaled that marketing claims about functional benefits are now a clear legal target. However, if a company’s claims are supported by genuine scientific evidence and clearly disclosed in labeling, litigation risk drops significantly; the problem arises when companies make bold functional claims with weak evidence or when lab testing reveals that the product does not contain what the label says it contains.
Government Enforcement Actions Are Amplifying Private Litigation
Private class action lawsuits are no longer the only legal threat facing food companies. In late 2025, San Francisco filed a groundbreaking lawsuit against 10 major ultra-processed food manufacturers, alleging that these companies use “deceitful tactics inherited from the Big Tobacco industry” to market harmful products to children. That lawsuit represents a sharp escalation in government enforcement—it targets marketing practices themselves, not just individual product claims, and it frames deceptive food marketing as a public health crisis rather than a labeling dispute. Parallel to that, the Texas Attorney General has launched multiple investigations under the state’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act, leading to settlements with Kellogg and General Mills that required removal of synthetic dyes from popular products like Trix and Lucky Charms.
These government actions create a cascading effect: when a state attorney general wins a settlement, it signals to private plaintiffs’ attorneys that similar claims are meritorious, and class actions follow. At the legislative level, 15 states introduced bills in 2025 attempting to define “ultra-processed foods” in law, with most bills focused on prohibiting specific additives including food dyes and preservatives. This patchwork of state regulation creates a compliance nightmare for national CPG companies—a product compliant in one state may violate another state’s dye restrictions. The difference between government enforcement and private litigation is critical: government actions often result in regulatory restrictions on what can be sold or how it can be marketed, whereas private class actions focus on compensating consumers who bought non-compliant products. Together, they create a two-pronged attack that is reshaping the food industry faster than regulatory agencies alone could achieve.
The MAHA Commission’s Role in Triggering the Litigation Surge
The MAHA Commission assessment in May 2025 served as an inflection point. By explicitly identifying ultra-processed foods and food additives as contributors to a “child health crisis,” the Commission legitimized regulatory scrutiny of food marketing that had previously been considered exaggerated or fringe. That assessment has already triggered concrete regulatory responses: the FDA is now preparing a formal definition of ultra-processed foods (UPF) that is expected to encompass additives, emulsifiers, and preservatives, and the FTC has signaled enhanced enforcement around price transparency, origin claims, and influencer marketing of food products. When federal regulatory agencies signal that a particular practice or claim is on their radar, plaintiffs’ attorneys and state attorneys general respond by filing lawsuits based on similar theories.
The MAHA assessment also emboldened state legislatures to move faster on nutrition labeling and ingredient restrictions. The proposed nutrition label rule requiring standardized nutrition information tied to saturated fat, sodium, and added sugars on the principal display panel of products is still in development, but companies are already anticipating that rule by reformulating products and changing how they present nutritional claims. This regulatory momentum—from MAHA Commission assessment to FDA definitions to state bill drafting—is accelerating the timeline for litigation. Plaintiffs’ attorneys and regulators are no longer reacting to individual false claims; they are proactively attacking entire product categories and marketing approaches that the MAHA Commission has identified as harmful to public health.
Which Marketing Claims Are Most Vulnerable to Litigation?
Understanding which claims regulators and plaintiffs are targeting is essential for understanding litigation risk. Synthetic food dyes and colorings are under intense scrutiny after Texas’s dye-removal settlements, making any product that relies on bright artificial colors a high-risk target—even if the dyes are legal. Protein and probiotic claims are equally vulnerable, particularly when the claimed levels differ from independent lab testing. “Natural,” “no artificial,” and purity-oriented claims are being challenged when products contain preservatives, emulsifiers, or other processing additives that contradict the “natural” positioning.
Calorie, fiber, and protein content misrepresentations are lawsuit magnets because these claims are quantifiable and verifiable through lab testing. However, not all health claims are equally risky. A company that makes a general claim that a product “may support digestive health as part of a balanced diet” faces lower litigation risk than a company claiming that its product “contains X grams of live probiotics that restore gut microbiome balance.” The first claim is vague and supported by general scientific consensus; the second is specific, falsifiable, and likely to draw scrutiny from regulators and plaintiffs. Similarly, a product that honestly discloses its ingredients and accurately states calorie and nutrient content is far less vulnerable than a product with hidden processing additives or lab-verified misstatements. The warning here is simple: if a claim is specific enough to be worth marketing, it is specific enough to be worth litigating over if it turns out to be false or misleading.
Settlement Structures and What Consumers Actually Recover
When a class action lawsuit settles, the settlement funds are typically divided among all class members—the consumers who bought the product during the period covered by the lawsuit. In the Poppi case, the $8.9 million settlement was divided among potentially hundreds of thousands of consumers, meaning individual compensation likely ranged from $5 to $50 per person, depending on how many people filed claims. Consumers who can submit proof of purchase receive higher compensation; those who submit without proof receive lower amounts or are placed in a “non-claimant” pool where unclaimed funds are distributed. The actual mechanics of claiming compensation from a food marketing class action are straightforward.
After a settlement is finalized, a settlement website is created where consumers can either submit claims with proof of purchase (usually a receipt) or make a claim based on their own memory of purchasing the product. Claims are processed, and checks are mailed or funds are deposited directly. For low-value settlements—which most food marketing cases are—the administrative cost of verifying each claim is often higher than the claim amount itself, which is why many settlements allow self-certification without receipt. The important thing for consumers to know is that settlements do not require joining a class action lawsuit; if you purchased the product during the class period, you are automatically part of the class and can make a claim once the settlement is approved and claim period opens.
What Comes Next—The Future of Food Marketing Litigation
The FDA’s expected formal definition of ultra-processed foods, scheduled for release in coming months, will likely accelerate litigation further by creating a regulatory standard that plaintiffs’ attorneys can use as a benchmark. If the FDA definition is expansive—covering not just ultra-processed foods but also the specific additives and preservatives that constitute “processing”—then any food company marketing products as “natural” or “minimally processed” will face pressure to either reformulate or defend expensive lawsuits. Simultaneously, the FTC’s enhanced enforcement focus on influencer marketing and origin claims means that food companies relying on celebrity endorsements or ambiguous “farm-to-table” positioning face heightened regulatory risk.
Looking forward, the litigation wave will likely continue to accelerate through 2026 and beyond because the underlying conditions that triggered it remain in place: regulatory agencies are aligned on viewing ultra-processed foods and deceptive food marketing as problems, states are legislating restrictions on specific additives, and plaintiffs’ attorneys have proven that settlements in food marketing cases can be substantial enough to justify the cost of litigation. For companies, the path forward is clear: claims must be narrowly tailored to what the product actually contains, nutritional data must be verified through third-party testing, and “natural” or health-oriented positioning must be backed by science or dropped. For consumers, the wave of litigation also offers an opportunity—if you bought a product that was later sued for false claims, you may be eligible for settlement compensation, and checking settlement websites periodically can identify cases where you purchased the targeted product.
Conclusion
The rise of food marketing lawsuits under the MAHA movement is not a temporary phenomenon driven by a few aggressive plaintiffs’ attorneys—it reflects a structural alignment between regulatory agencies, state governments, and private litigators who are all targeting the same set of practices: false health claims, unsubstantiated functional benefits, and deceptive marketing of ultra-processed foods. The 58% increase in class action filings between 2023 and 2024, combined with over 200 lawsuits filed in 2025 alone, signals that this litigation will continue. Specific claims about protein content, probiotic benefits, natural ingredients, and calorie accuracy are under the heaviest attack, and settlements are large enough to justify aggressive litigation strategies.
For consumers who purchased these products, monitoring settlement websites and understanding your eligibility to claim compensation is straightforward once a settlement is approved. For food companies, the message is equally clear: marketing claims must be accurate, verifiable, and narrowly tailored to what scientific evidence supports. The MAHA Commission’s assessment of ultra-processed foods as a public health crisis has triggered a cascading response across regulatory agencies and state legislatures, creating an environment where food marketing litigation will remain a significant legal and business risk for years to come.