Key Takeaways
- What happened: California enacted the first state ban on certain ultraprocessed foods (UPFs) in public school meals.
- Who’s impacted: School food authorities, K–12 food vendors, and manufacturers selling into the California school market; national brands should consider ripple effects in other jurisdictions.
- Why it matters: California’s framework arrives amid federal MAHA activity and a rising state patchwork of scrutiny over food chemicals and UPFs; alignment and reformulation planning will be critical.
- What to do now: Inventory school-channel SKUs, map additives that could drive a UPF designation under the California Act, and build a reformulation and labeling plan to meet California’s 2028–2035 milestones.
California Governor Newsom signed the Real Food, Healthy Kids Act into law on October 8, 2025, making California one of the first states to phase out “ultraprocessed foods” from school lunches, with the reporting phase beginning in June 2028. The phaseout itself will begin in the 2029-2030 school year and finish in the 2035-2036 school year. This comes after Governor Newsom’s January 3, 2025 Executive Order instructing the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) to provide recommendations to the Governor’s Office regarding potential action to limit the harms associated with ultraprocessed food. Additionally, because California is one of the first states to define “ultraprocessed foods” by statute and is often at the forefront of state laws regulating the use of certain chemicals and types of foods, food manufacturers and other stakeholders should follow this area closely to see whether other states follow suit.
What are Ultraprocessed Foods?
There is no uniform legal definition of ultraprocessed foods (UPFs). In September 2025, the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission released the “Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy.” The report discussed the current state of UPF use in America and noted that while there is no universally accepted definition of UPFs, the term “is most commonly associated with the NOVA food classification system, ‘industrially manufactured food products made up of several ingredients (formulations) including sugar, oils, fats and salt and food substances of no or rare culinary use.’” The MAHA Strategy also highlighted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) and U.S. Department of Agriculture’s July 2025 request for information to help develop a uniform UPF definition.
California’s new law defines “ultraprocessed foods” expansively, to include any food or beverage that contains a substance listed in FDA’s Substances Added to Food database that has both certain FDA-defined technical effects and “high amounts” (as defined in the bill) of saturated fat, sodium, or added sugar. The technical effects that may cause a product to be considered a UPF in California include surface-active agents; stabilizers and thickeners; propellants, aerating agents, and gases; colors and coloring adjuncts; emulsifiers and emulsifier salts; flavoring agents and adjuvants; flavor enhancers; and nonnutritive sweeteners. The law carves certain additives or ingredients out from its UPF definition, such as salt, spices, and natural color additives, which will not, by themselves, cause a food to be classified as a UPF. The law further requires the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) to adopt regulations defining “ultraprocessed foods of concern” and “restricted school foods,” which must be phased out of school foods on different timelines.
Earlier this year, Arizona passed the “Arizona Healthy Schools Act,” which, like California’s new law, bans schools from selling ultraprocessed foods, though with a much narrower definition. Arizona’s law focuses on foods and beverages that contain one or more of a list of eleven ingredients primarily composed of synthetic food dyes. This law will take effect in the 2026-2027 school year—a much more aggressive timeline. A number of other states considered legislation similar to Arizona’s in 2025, though none have enacted legislation.
Implementation Timeline
The Real Food, Healthy Kids Act’s aim is to phase out UPFs in schools over time, starting in the 2029-2030 school year, with a full ban going into effect by 2035. There are two timelines of note in the Act: the reporting and regulatory timeline and the phaseout timeline. If a school is in noncompliance with this Act, said school will become ineligible for state meal reimbursement.
Regulatory
- February 1, 2028: Vendors must begin annual reporting to CDPH. The reports for each food product sold to a school in a given calendar year must include product quantities, the name of the product, whether the product is a UPF, whether the product is a restricted school food or a UPF of concern, the category or categories of food to which the product belongs, the average total calories in each food product sold to schools that year, the ingredients, and the nutritional facts.
- Vendor reports will be due annually through February 1, 2032.
- The statute does not clarify what information vendors need to report in February 2028 if CDPH has not yet promulgated regulations to define “ultraprocessed foods of concern” or “restricted school foods.”
- June 1, 2028: CDPH must adopt regulations to define “ultraprocessed foods of concern” and “restricted school foods”.
- June 1, 2028: CDPH must collaborate with the California Department of Education to submit to the Legislature a written report analyzing vendor-submitted data, phaseout progress, feasibility, and recommendations.
- CDPH reports will be due annually through July 1, 2032.
- CDPH must review and, as needed, update the definitions of “UPFs of concern” and “restricted school foods” every five years. If a revision would add items to either list, the new restriction’s operation is delayed by three years to allow time to comply.
Phaseout
- December 31, 2027: “Competitive foods” (i.e., all foods and beverages offered for sale to students on school campuses during the school day other than reimbursable school meals) may not contain the synthetic color additives Blue 1, Blue 2, Green 3, Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6.
- California enacted the ban in 2024 and reaffirmed it through this legislation.
- July 1, 2029: Schools must begin phasing out restricted school foods and ultraprocessed foods of concern.
- July 1, 2032: Vendors may not offer restricted school foods or UPFs of concern to schools.
- July 1, 2035: School-provided “nutritionally adequate” meals and competitive foods and beverages may not include restricted school foods or UPFs of concern, with some exemptions for meals and competitive foods (but not competitive beverages) provided through USDA’s “Foods in Schools” program.
Food manufacturers should begin to review their portfolios to plan for these new reporting and phaseout requirements, as well as for potential new laws that may follow. Reformulation may be necessary to reduce liability under these changing circumstances.