Scientists criticize food manufacturers for massive profits from sales of unhealthy ultraprocessed food

Certain ultraprocessed foods, or UPFs, are contributing to worldwide obesity, chronic health conditions and premature death, yet the food industry continues to aggressively market new and existing products in this category for massive profits, according to an unprecedented three-part series authored by 43 global experts in nutrition and supported by the United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, and the World Health Organization.

More than 50% of the $2.9 trillion paid to shareholders by food corporations between 1962 and 2021 “was distributed by UPF manufacturers alone,” according to research published Tuesday in the leading medical journal The Lancet.

“We found evidence that UPF consumption is increasing everywhere around the world, fueled by powerful global corporations,” said coauthor Carlos Augusto Monteiro, professor emeritus of nutrition and public health in the School of Public Health at Brazil’s University of São Paulo.

“To keep this business model, which is highly profitable, the industry cannot afford to make minimally processed foods as they did in the past, so they use extensive political lobbying to stop effective public health policies that support healthy eating,” said Monteiro, who coined the term “ultraprocessed food” in 2009 when he developed the NOVA classification system, which categorizes foods into four groups by their level of industrial processing.

Companies can “double or triple their profits” by turning corn, wheat, beans and other whole foods “into a colorless and flavorless sawdust which is then reconstructed with artificial flavorings and additives,” said Barry Popkin, the W.R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health.