Food industry ties shape most criticism of ultra-processed food classification

A striking new analysis has found that the vast majority of academic articles criticizing the Nova food classification system — the scientific framework at the center of the global debate over ultra-processed foods — were written by authors with financial or professional ties to the food industry. The study, published in the American Journal of Public Health and led by Erica M. LaFata, Ph.D., a research scientist at the Oregon Research Institute, offers one of the most comprehensive portraits yet of who is shaping the scientific conversation about how ultra-processed foods should be defined, measured, and regulated. At a moment when governments around the world are weighing dietary guidelines and labeling policies informed by Nova, the findings raise pointed questions about transparency in nutrition science and the forces that may be influencing it.

Nova, a food classification system developed by researchers at the University of São Paulo, categorizes foods not by their nutrient content but by the degree and purpose of the industrial processing they undergo. The system’s fourth and most scrutinized category, ultra-processed foods, includes many packaged snacks, candy, sweetened beverages, and ready-to-eat products — foods manufactured with industrial ingredients and additives that consumers rarely use in home cooking. Over the past decade, Nova has become the backbone of a growing body of research linking higher consumption of ultra-processed foods to poorer health outcomes, including weight gain, cardiovascular disease, and other chronic conditions. That evidence base has, in turn, informed dietary recommendations and policy debates from Brazil to the United Kingdom, making Nova one of the most consequential frameworks in modern nutrition science.

But Nova has also attracted sustained criticism. Some researchers argue that the system lumps together nutritionally dissimilar products, that it overemphasizes processing at the expense of nutrient profiles, and that its categories are too vague to support sound policy. These critiques are not fringe positions; they appear in peer-reviewed journals and shape how policymakers interpret the evidence on ultra-processed foods. What has been far less clear is whether the researchers making these arguments bring independent perspectives — or undisclosed commercial interests — to the debate. LaFata and her colleagues set out to answer precisely that question using a systematic review, one of the most rigorous tools available for synthesizing a body of literature.

The team systematically identified 69 academic articles published between 2009 and 2025 that either criticized Nova or described potential benefits of ultra-processed foods. They then examined the industry relationships of the 232 authors across those articles, drawing on two sources: conflicts of interest disclosed within the articles themselves and additional relationships identified exclusively through publicly available information, such as corporate advisory roles, consulting arrangements, and funding records. This dual approach was designed to capture ties that authors may not have reported to journals, a persistent problem across biomedical research.

The results were striking. Fully 91.3 percent of the articles included at least one author with an identified food industry relationship. At the individual level, more than two-thirds of the authors — 68.5 percent — had some form of industry tie. Even more revealing was the disclosure gap: for 71.1 percent of the authors with identified industry relationships, those ties were found only through publicly available sources rather than through the formal conflict-of-interest disclosures attached to the articles. In other words, in most cases a reader of the original article would have had no way of knowing, from the article itself, that the authors had commercial relationships relevant to the topic at hand.

The analysis also uncovered a pattern in the content of the articles themselves. Articles involving authors with industry relationships were more likely to defend the food industry’s position or promote potential benefits of ultra-processed foods than articles written by authors with no identified industry ties. While the study’s design does not establish that industry relationships caused the critical positions — it is possible that companies seek out academics who already hold skeptical views — the association is difficult to dismiss in a field whose findings feed directly into regulatory decisions. The systematic review’s methodology, which included clearly defined criteria for identifying and classifying both the articles and the industry relationships, lends considerable weight to the pattern it documents.

LaFata is careful to frame the findings as a call for transparency rather than a wholesale dismissal of Nova’s critics. “This study is not saying that criticism of Nova is illegitimate,” she said, noting that “some of those criticisms identify real ways the system can be improved.” Any classification scheme as ambitious as Nova — one that attempts to sort the entire food supply by industrial processing rather than nutrients — is fair game for scientific scrutiny, and legitimate methodological critiques can strengthen the science. The concern, she argued, is not criticism itself but the possibility that readers, journalists, and policymakers cannot see who is behind it. “But readers should know who is shaping that debate,” she said. “When most of the published criticism involves authors with food industry relationships, and many of those relationships are not disclosed, transparency becomes especially important.”

The implications extend well beyond academic circles. Dietary guidelines, front-of-package labeling schemes, tax policies on sugary drinks, and school food standards are all increasingly informed by research on ultra-processed foods, and Nova sits at the center of that evidence base. If a substantial share of the published criticism of that framework comes from authors with undisclosed industry relationships, the apparent scientific controversy around Nova may look different once the affiliations behind it are visible. This dynamic — in which commercial interests shape scientific debate through apparently legitimate academic channels — echoes patterns documented in earlier public health fights over tobacco, sugar, and alcohol, where industry-funded research and industry-connected experts played measurable roles in delaying or diluting policy responses.

The study’s authors argue that the findings underscore the need for stronger transparency practices across nutrition research. Journals could tighten conflict-of-interest disclosure requirements and verify author statements against public records. Readers and journalists evaluating claims about ultra-processed foods could weigh the industry relationships of the researchers making those claims. Policymakers relying on the scientific literature to craft dietary guidance could ask not only what the evidence says, but who produced it and under what financial arrangements. None of these steps requires assuming bad faith on the part of any individual researcher; they simply acknowledge that financial relationships are relevant context for evaluating scientific arguments, particularly when those arguments concern the products of the companies involved.

As the debate over ultra-processed foods intensifies — with regulatory agencies, legislatures, and international health bodies all taking a closer look at the science — this systematic review provides a rare empirical window into that debate’s structure. Its central message is straightforward: criticism of Nova, like any scientific argument, deserves engagement on its merits, but the terms of that engagement change when the affiliations of its proponents remain hidden. With more than two-thirds of the field’s Nova critics holding food industry ties and most of those ties absent from formal disclosures, the study makes the case that transparency is not a bureaucratic nicety in nutrition science. It is a prerequisite for an honest public conversation about one of the most pressing questions in modern diet and health.

Subject of Research: A systematic review of food industry affiliations among researchers who criticize the Nova food classification system.

Article Title: Who’s shaping the debate over ultra-processed foods?

Article References: Who’s shaping the debate over ultra-processed foods?. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: ultra-processed foods, Nova classification, food industry ties, conflict of interest, nutrition research, systematic review, public health, transparency, disclosure, American Journal of Public Health, Oregon Research Institute, food policy