New standards would require food companies to notify the FDA of new ingredients shortly after going to market and create a framework for the FDA to conduct post-market reviews of ingredient safety.

FDA commissioner Kyle Diamantas told reporters ahead of the announcement that the move will “increase transparency and consumer confidence in the food supply.”

“Shifting to a mandatory notification system closes a decades-old information gap, giving the FDA the comprehensive visibility needed to enhance postmarket safety and to do so more promptly and efficiently to assure the safety of the food supply,” Diamantas said.

Trump administration officials also announced progress toward an official definition of ultraprocessed foods, which will likely create an avenue for stricter FDA regulations. The full text of the definition has not been made public yet, but Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been highly critical of ultraprocessed foods, blaming them and their makers for the epidemics of obesity and Type 2 diabetes in the United States.

“We cannot reverse America’s chronic disease epidemic without transforming our food system,” Kennedy said in a statement. “These historic actions bring greater transparency to what’s in our food and strong science to federal nutrition policy.”

Food policy win for MAHA

The HHS event announcing the new policy Monday resembled a midterm election rally, with video highlight reels, upbeat music, and parents and children holding “Eat Real Food” signs on the stage with Trump administration officials.

GRAS reform has been a goal for Kennedy and other Trump administration officials within the MAHA movement since the 2024 campaign season.

Kennedy, during his opening speech at the event, harkened back to August 2024, when he joined President Donald Trump on the campaign trail, suspending his independent presidential run to take on the health policy agenda for the then-GOP candidate.

“We promised to transform our food systems and confront one of the most powerful drivers of America’s chronic disease crisis,” Kennedy said. “Almost exactly two years later, we’re celebrating the most transformative 18 months of food reform in modern American history.”

The push for nutrition reform from MAHA marks a departure from the laissez-faire posture toward food corporations from the pre-Trump era GOP. In the 2010s, Republicans denounced Democrat-led food reform initiatives as government overreach, such as proposed restrictions on soda from then-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the activity and nutrition campaign of then-first lady Michelle Obama.

But following the COVID-19 pandemic, voters in both parties have shown an increased appetite for imposing regulations on major food corporations geared at increasing the healthfulness of the American diet.

Calley Means, a White House food policy adviser, said during the event that the administration is taking steps to “fix regulations that have been perverted by decades of corporate capture.” 

Means also said the new rule is critical because “every mom cares about food safety,” referring to the coalition of so-called “MAHA Moms” who supported the GOP in 2024 in part because of food reform promises to protect children’s health.

“We must ensure our children’s cells are not poisoned by thousands of unknown chemicals, which set our kids up at scale for guaranteed life, worsened and shortened by obesity, diabetes, and mental health challenges,” Means said.

Post-market review of GRAS ingredients

Food companies are likely to protest the added regulatory steps for GRAS in the process of getting products onto shelves, but the postmarket review process, in theory, creates a lower regulatory burden than a preapproval process that some MAHA advocates have sought.

Diamantas stressed with reporters ahead of the announcement that the new rule would create a postmarket review and transparency system rather than implement a premarket approval process.

Under the proposed rule, companies would be required to submit a notice of a new ingredient and inform the FDA that it has been determined safe. The FDA would then review the notification within 45 days to ensure it provides enough information.

Diamantas said the FDA would review the notification substantively within 180 days of receipt, after which time the agency might send a letter with questions or saying that it does not believe the company has met the evidentiary threshold.

The FDA commissioner said Congress would need to intervene to update the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to give the agency the authority to conduct premarket ingredient approvals.

“What we’re doing is requiring companies that utilize that pathway to notify us of their conclusions, so that we have greater visibility into those conclusions, and so that consumers have awareness,” Diamantas said.

Both the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee have advanced food reform legislation this session, including updating GRAS standards and labeling requirements for levels of salt, sugar, and saturated fats in ultraprocessed foods.

“This administration will continue working with Congress on legislative options to further address and advance GRAS reform and other important nutritional policies,” Diamantas said during the event Monday.

Curbing foodborne illnesses in new food

The FDA also publicized final guidance on microbiological food safety aimed at helping companies improve compliance with food safety for fresh-cut produce amid multiple foodborne infectious disease outbreaks.

The new guidance document clarifies supply chain control and provides additional time and temperature control recommendations to decrease the risk of pathogen growth and spread.

Dr. Jerome Adams, the surgeon general during the first Trump administration, lambasted Kennedy’s push for fresh produce on Friday amid the recent string of foodborne illnesses that have limited consumers’ options for fresh produce and animal products.

The multistate outbreak of cyclospora, a parasite that causes explosive diarrhea and gastrointestinal distress, has constricted sales of prewashed salads, berries, and other hard-to-wash produce. Meanwhile, eggs and jalapenos have been recalled across several other states due to a Salmonella outbreak.

TAYLOR FRESH FOODS RECALLS JALAPENOS OVER SALMONELLA CONCERNS AMID CYCLOSPORA OUTBREAK

Diamantas told the Washington Examiner ahead of the official announcement that the new guidance document is consistent with the agency’s commitment to advancing food safety through science-based recommendations.”

“Certainly, we think that this will further align with our goals, assisting industry on foodborne illness outbreaks,” Diamantas said.