Processed foods are once again a hot topic. Between catastrophic externalized costs, new diet drugs, rampant price gouging and a growing wave of regulations, processed foods are attracting all the wrong attention. But processing may also be key to reinvigorating the best and brightest trends in the food industry.
 

People have processed food since the dawn of time. Nixtamalizing corn, stomping grapes into wine, smoking fish. Processing food makes us human. But in recent decades, as food processing has become more industrialized and consolidated among ever fewer manufacturers and retailers, things have gotten out of control.
 

Much of our food processing infrastructure was originally underwritten by federal contracts for provisions needed to feed the troops during WW2. The grocery industry is to this day a permanent wartime economy. The agribusiness sector solidified during the post-war period to ensure cheap, calorie-dense, convenient and abundant food for all. Decades later, this stunning success has led to widespread consumption of ultra-processed food (UPF’s). It has also wrought enormous damage to human health and the environment.

In order to understand these impacts, scientists developed the NOVA classification system. NOVA classifies foods at 4 different levels of processing, from unprocessed all the way up to UPF. The system is not perfect, but it has helped scientists understand and articulate how processed foods have warped health and wellness indicators across the world.

In industrialized countries, over 50% of calories come from ultra-processed foods. Study after study links overconsumption of UPF’s like breakfast cereals, soft drinks, hot dogs, French fries, frozen pizza and snack chips to non-communicable diseases, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, colorectal and breast cancer, obesity, depression and all-cause mortality. UPF’s are often high in salt, sugar and fat and are quite likely addictive. They are priced cheaper per serving than minimally processed and whole foods. They make up at least $485 billion of the $1 trillion U.S. grocery industry, or close to 50 cents of every dollar spent at checkout. About 70% of products across dozens of categories made by CPG giants, including Kellogg, General MillsGIS +1.3%, Unilever, Kraft Heinz and Nestle, are considered unhealthy. UPF’s dominate shelf space, mindshare and wallet share. How? Over $25 billion in annual promotional trade spend for BOGOs, end caps, and shelf specials, plus over $14 billion a year spent on advertising, including $2 billion a year directed at kids. Even cravings can be manufactured.

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