What Big Food wants in the ultra-processed foods debate, with Rocco Renaldi

The debate about ultra-processed foods is loud in America right now, but zoom out, and it's everywhere. Governments around the world are trying to figure out what to do about diet-related disease, and the food and beverage industry is under pressure at every turn.Rocco Renaldi is secretary general of the International Food and Beverage Alliance, the group that brings together some of the world's biggest multinational food companies — Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Mondelēz — for coordinated action on nutrition and public health. He's also an executive at Edelman and is based in Brussels, which gives him a vantage point on these debates that we don’t hear as much stateside.Highlights:– Why the industry sees the UPF debate as a threat to the work already done on product reformulation– What the science does and doesn't tell us about processing as a health risk– Whether a workable, science-based UPF definition is even possible, and who's likely to define it first– How voluntary commitments like global trans fat elimination and salt reduction are going– What MAHA and RFK Jr.'s rhetoric look like from Brussels– GLP-1 drugs as a market force versus warning labels as a policy toolWhere to find Rocco Renaldi:International Food and Beverage Alliance (IFBA)Mentioned in this episode:NOVA food classification system — the processing-based framework at the center of the UPF debateWhat we still don't know about ultra-processed foods with Julia Belluz & Kevin Hall — my earlier conversation with the NIH researcher who studied ultra-processed foods in controlled settingsCalifornia's work on UPF definitions in school meals — the state's ongoing effort to restrict the most harmful ultra-processed foods from school food programsStay in touch:Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix.Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube.Send ideas and feedback to [email protected] out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network.Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz. Original music by David Bottemiller.