US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s plan to simplify consumer choices with traffic light-style labels on packaged foods risks miring the government’s healthy eating campaign in lengthy regulatory and legal fights.
Kennedy last week said he aims to implement “red light, green light, yellow light” color-coded labels based on a forthcoming definition of ultra-processed food. It’s a goal he’s repeatedly teased, including during a February appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, when he suggested traffic light-style labels in the grocery store could help consumers discern what’s healthy.
“People don’t want to have to read the entire label and figure out what’s good for them, what isn’t,” Kennedy said on June 9 at the International Fresh Produce Association conference.
But such a change in federal food labeling could restart the government’s yearslong regulatory timeline and open the administration to claims of free speech violations from food makers.
Kennedy’s plan would deviate from a Biden-era proposal for a condensed version of the “Nutrition Facts” panel highlighting saturated fat, sodium, and added sugar levels on the front of packages.
Using a color-coded system in food labeling isn’t a new idea. The Biden administration’s Food and Drug Administration tested colored labels in a 2024 consumer study, but ultimately abandoned that approach in its January 2025 proposed rulemaking.
“The reason we proposed the black and white was that consumers that we tested found it more straightforward and easy to understand—which actually surprised all of us—we thought red, yellow, green would test really well,” Jim Jones, former deputy commissioner for human foods while FDA developed its labeling proposal, said in an interview.
Kennedy’s goal still faces several steps before it can become reality.
The Trump administration hasn’t yet published a definition of ultra-processed food. Kennedy said June 9 it’s awaiting White House approval, but the Office of Management and Budget hasn’t identified the definition as under review online, nor did it respond to a request for comment on the definition’s review status.
Process Hurdles
The Trump administration would likely need to re-propose any regulation using a label modeled after a traffic light rather than finalizing the Biden-era rulemaking with substantive changes, said Stuart Pape, chair of Polsinelli’s FDA practice.
“If FDA, HHS were to issue a final rule that required traffic lights, the question that would clearly be challenged in court by one or more industry interests,” would be whether stakeholders were properly informed that was a possible outcome of the 2025 proposal, Pape said in an interview.
Although FDA previously studied using traffic light colors, whether the Trump administration would have to seek additional comment turns on whether changes are a logical outgrowth of what Biden administration regulators proposed. The Biden-era proposal doesn’t mention ultra-processed food.
“There’s no doubt about it they would have to re-propose,” if regulators opted to use ultra-processed food—rather than specific nutrients—as the basis for a labeling rule, Jones said.
“It’s a fundamentally different approach.”
Kyle Diamantas, now acting commissioner of the FDA, said the agency was considering re-proposing the rule during a February interview with Bloomberg Law. Overhauling regulatory proposals, and processing comments submitted by stakeholders on the changes, takes time.
Mandating traffic light labeling may also raise free speech questions.
“If you tell me I have to put a red light on the front of my product, you are requiring me to engage in government mandated speech that is derogatory about my product and that violates the commercial free speech doctrine,” Pape said.
Some research has found, however, that traffic light labeling helps consumers better contextualize factual information such as a product’s sodium level, said Jennifer Pomeranz, a public health lawyer and professor at New York University.
“Is that curing the controversy because it’s actually more effective at communicating? That’s a very interesting question that the courts will have to sort out,” Pomeranz said.
Courts are already tackling these questions as state lawmakers advance food labeling requirements.
In February, a federal judge preliminarily blocked Texas from requiring warning labels for foods containing any of 44 food ingredients and dyes saying they’d been banned in a number of European countries.
But the New York state Supreme Court in 2024 upheld a New York City requirement that restaurants use warning levels for menu offerings containing more than the recommended daily limit of sodium.
“The court was able to say that’s clearly a safety issue,” Pomeranz said.
International Models
While color-coding packaged foods would be new for the US, dozens of countries are already using front-of-package labeling, including traffic light models, to identify certain nutrients or the healthfulness of foods.
The United Kingdom since 2006 has recommended companies use voluntary color coding to indicate a food’s level of total fat, saturated fat, sugar, and salt. One study found grocery store shoppers there were most concerned with avoiding products labeled red.
Only 17 countries enforce mandatory labeling requirements as of January 2026, according to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Global Food Research Program.
If the goal of a food label is to improve public health, conveying simple information in a clear manner is also key.
Jerold Mande, a former senior adviser at FDA who led the Nutrition Facts label design, said the effectiveness of color coding is varied and it’s unclear whether Kennedy’s model would work.
“Imagine coming up to a traffic light and instead of one light being illuminated, two or three are illuminated—you’d be confused as a driver,” Mande said.
“A well-designed front of package label will absolutely encourage consumers to purchase healthier products,” said Christina Roberto, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Food and Nutrition Policy.
Beyond informing consumers, food labels can also have downstream effects on what products schools can serve and companies can market to kids, Roberto said.
“Food labeling is so important, because what they’re able to do is link that to other policies,” she said.