CSPI will file lawsuit to ban sale of sugary soft drinks in schools

Food & Drink Weekly, Dec 12, 2005

The Center for Science in the Public Interest plans to file a lawsuit in the next few months that will seek to ban sales of sugary beverages in schools. The lawsuit is to be filed in Massachusetts, which has strong consumer protection laws will name Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and their local bottlers, the lawyers say. It will be the first of many such state lawsuits, they say.

The Massachusetts lawsuit will focus specifically on sales of what it terms unhealthy beverages (likely to mean full-calorie sodas, sports drinks, iced tea drinks and juice drinks without much juice) in high schools and will argue that such sales constitute unfair and deceptive marketing. The suit will also cite the ways in which the large illuminated Coke and Pepsi machines lining school halls and cafeterias are an "attractive nuisance."

The $92 billion beverage industry, dominated by Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, is gearing up for a counterattack. Last week, the American Beverage Association, the lobbying group for the beverage industry, released a study arguing that soda sales in schools are not a significant contributor to rising childhood obesity rates. The study, which was paid for by the association but conducted by an outside economist, concluded that school vending machine sales of non-diet soda declined by 24 percent from 2002 to 2004 and that the average high school student consumes just one 12-ounce nondiet soda a week from school vending machines.

According to a GAO report published in August, 75 percent of all high schools, 65 percent of all middle schools and 30 percent of elementary schools have beverage contracts. Such contracts have been promoted as a continuing source of revenue for schools needing cash. But a study of public school contracts in Oregon done by the Community Health Partnership, a public health advocacy group, concluded that the amount of money received by schools is not that significant and that by far, most of the revenue goes to the companies. School districts received just $12 to $24 per student annually.

Trans-fat Strategies Vary

Major restaurant chains such as McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut and Dairy Queen have been much slower in cutting back on their use of frying and baking oils that contain artery-clogging trans-fats than food manufacturers, according to a survey of the U.S. industry by the consumer advocacy group, the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

A nutrition-labeling requirement that takes effect on January 1 2006 has prompted biscuit manufacturers such as Kraft, maker of Oreos, to eliminate trans-fats, but the federal rule applies only to packaged products and not to foods sold in restaurants, the survey notes. Michael Thomason, executive director of the centre, said that restaurants do not feel any pressure to stop using the partially hydrogenated vegetable oils that contain trans-fats. However, Katherine Kim, a spokeswoman, for the National Restaurant Association, said that the industry is "actively working to reduce the amount of trans-fat."

The survey found that many of Kraft's products are already free of trans-fat or contain less than the 0.5g limit set by the Food and Drug Administration to be labeled as trans-fat free. Trans-fats are also being removed from most of ConAgra's products and General Mills is working to remove partially hydrogenated oils from the 10% of its products than contain them, the survey discovered.