The US is at a pivotal moment in addressing diet- related disease. With rising regulatory attention, shifting consumer expectations and increasing investor scrutiny, the healthiness of packaged food portfolios has become a material issue for industry and public health alike. Poor diets are the leading cause of death in the US, contributing to around one million deaths each year and an estimated USD 50bn annually in health care costs. This report provides new evidence that meaningful health gains could be achieved by shifting sales towards healthier products that already exist on the market and calls on companies, investors, and policymakers to accelerate progress.

The US food supply is dominated by commercial, packaged products, with around 80% of total calories consumed coming from store-bought foods and beverages. This gives food and beverage (F&B) manufacturers an important role in shaping the nutritional quality of the food we buy.
 

This report estimates how many deaths linked to diet-related diseases could be delayed in the US each year if F&B companies shifted towards healthier product sales, making healthier foods become the norm. It models a scenario in which sales shift towards the healthiest 50% of products within each food category that are already available on the market, as defined by the Health Star Rating (HSR), an internationally recognised nutrient profiling system. Under this scenario, it is estimated that reduced intake of energy, saturated fat and salt, alongside increased fibre intake, could result in around 150,000 fewer deaths linked to diet-related diseases in the US in a single year. In addition to a substantial reduction in healthcare costs, this shift could prevent around USD 11.6bn a year in lost working-age earnings associated with premature deaths from diet-related disease. 
 

The estimates are based on data from almost 10,000 commercial packaged products sold by 24 of the largest F&B companies and are extrapolated to the wider US market. The estimated impact varies considerably across F&B categories, with improvements in the healthiness of baked goods, and sauces, dips and condiments contributing the largest gains.
 

Importantly, the estimates are grounded in products already available on the market. Achieving these gains would not require companies to reinvent their entire portfolios but rather to produce and sell substantially higher proportions of the healthier options already on supermarket shelves. With thousands of lives on the
line, this study shows that F&B companies have a real opportunity to unlock substantial public health benefits by rebalancing their portfolios towards healthier products.

These findings should be interpreted as indicative estimates of potential health impact rather than precise forecasts. Key limitations and assumptions include the use of published evidence linking dietary risk factors to disease outcomes, which does not necessarily establish causality; coverage of a subset of the market and dietary factors; and reliance on category and company-level rather than product-level sales data. Further details and the full methodological considerations are set out in the Technical Support document.