Last week, in commemoration of National Macaroni and Cheese Day, some consumer advocates publicly shared alarming findings regarding hazardous chemicals present in cheese powder. “We believe it’s in every mac ‘n’ cheese product — you can’t shop your way out of the problem,” stated Mike Belliveau, executive director of the Environmental Health Strategy Center, a supporter of the study, in an interview with The New York Times. Consumer advocacy organizations are now urging individuals to reach out to manufacturers and demand actions to prevent chemicals from infiltrating food products.
These revelations pose a significant challenge for Kraft Heinz, which holds a 76% share of the boxed macaroni and cheese market. According to The New York Times, Kraft produces nine of the cheese products that were tested. Just a few years ago, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese underwent a significant reformulation aimed at eliminating artificial preservatives and synthetic colors, ostensibly to rid the products of such harmful chemicals.
No food manufacturer intentionally incorporates phthalates into their products. Instead, it is believed that this industrial chemical is leaching into food items from printed labels on packaging or from the plastic materials utilized in food processing equipment. If this is indeed the case, the entire consumer packaged goods (CPG) and food processing industries—not just macaroni and cheese manufacturers—are facing a serious problem.
In Europe, the use of phthalates in plastic food contact materials for fatty foods, including dairy products, has already been banned. However, The New York Times reports that a petition from food safety advocates to eliminate all phthalates from U.S. food, food packaging, and food manufacturing equipment has been stalled by the FDA due to technical reasons. Meanwhile, U.S. consumers are taking food safety into their own hands. According to the Food Marketing Institute’s U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends study, 61% of shoppers now say they rely on themselves for food safety, up from 55% in 2009. They also place significant trust in the FDA (54%) and USDA (50%) for ensuring food safety, while only 42% rely on food manufacturers.
The findings from this macaroni and cheese study provide consumers with yet another reason to avoid highly processed foods, which many are opting to replace with “cleaner,” less-processed alternatives. A Nielsen study revealed that approximately half of U.S. households intentionally seek out products made without artificial ingredients. This should be a major concern for manufacturers across various food segments, including those producing items like the Citracal nutrition label. It will be intriguing to see how widespread this issue is and how consumers will respond, especially as awareness grows around the importance of scrutinizing nutrition labels and ingredient lists.