RFK Jr will test the limits of his authority in quest to reshape food supply

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is now officially the U.S. Secretary of Health & Human Services, with immense influence over the country’s food and public health agenda. With Trump's backing, Kennedy has been tasked to reshape the way food is grown, processed and marketed under a new presidential Make America Healthy Again Commission.

What does that mean in practical terms? We don’t have to guess, as Kennedy has been very clear about his agenda. He disdains so-called ultra-processed foods. He wants to ban many pesticides used to grow crops as well as most additives and chemicals used to make food. He also wants healthier school meals and wants to restrict the foods that can be purchased with SNAP benefits.

These ideas are not new. What really has folks off-kilter is that these proposals, traditionally favored by Democrats, are being pursued by a Republican administration.

In fact, the Trump-RFK food and nutrition strategy looks a lot more like First Lady Michelle Obama’s, than it does Trump's first term. Secretary Kennedy and the MAHA Commission are no less passionate than Mrs. Obama when it comes to food and public health, but, like her, they may find red tape, litigation and time get in the way of passion. There is also scientific consensus, which often runs contrary to frustration and cries that something must be done.

Mrs. Obama leveraged the public policy process to post some wins, including school lunches, menu labeling and sodium. And when her agenda ran into obstacles, she utilized her “bully pulpit” to pressure food companies to make progress on the elusive, hard-to-do parts of her agenda. A plethora of voluntary self-regulatory and marketplace commitments, including, Facts Up Front, the Healthy Weight Commitment, Clear on Calories, Smart Label, and a more robust Children’s Advertising Review Unit resulted.

On the heels of the 2022 Biden White House food policy conference, I wrote in Food Dive that President Biden needed to have a conversation with Michelle Obama because FLOTUS didn’t simply cram down a bunch of new regulations on food companies. She had earnest conversations and found common ground as well, because, contrary to popular opinion, food companies want to do the right thing by their consumers. Their track record of the last 25 years says as much.

Fast forward and industry is once again facing a gauntlet of discriminatory public policy proposals, backed by influential people in the corridors of power. Yet, the MAHA commission does not rule by fiat and considerable checks, balances and practical realities remain in their way.

The food industry is generally skeptical of the MAHA interventions, because they are costly, disruptive, lack scientific consensus and the benefits are unknown. In fact, additive and chemical bans, food taxes, interpretive labeling mandates, and food advertising restrictions, to name a few, have had no impact on collective public health in Europe and Central and South America. In some countries, like Chile, obesity has gotten worse with the most progressive of these policies in place for many years.

As MAHA has captured the attention and imagination of a wide cross-section of the political spectrum, we may be at an inflection point, where thought leaders come together to collaborate, innovate and implement real solutions that work. On the contrary, serving the same warmed-over, anti-industry ideas activist organizations have trumped for decades has little chance to get us out of our public health mess at a time when the world is desperate for solutions that work.

Engagement, rather than fiat, not only provides the best hope for change, but it will also stave-off protracted political, policy and legal battles that serve neither side well, and that agitate voters and consumers along the way.