Food industry official urges Hochul to veto bill she says would add $620 to grocery bills
The $620 figure matches an analysis commissioned by the American Beverage Association. The bill's sponsors and a food-safety group dispute the cost projections, and the FDA has already ordered Red No. 3 out of food by January 2027.
Food industry official urges Hochul to veto bill she says would add $620 to grocery bills
The $620 figure matches an analysis commissioned by the American Beverage Association. The bill's sponsors and a food-safety group dispute the cost projections, and the FDA has already ordered Red No. 3 out of food by January 2027.
Allison Cooke, the director of regulatory affairs and government relations at the International Food Additives Council, urged Gov. Kathy Hochul to veto a New York bill that she argues would add about $620 a year to the average household’s grocery bill, in an op-ed published Saturday, Nov. 7.
The bill would ban Red No. 3 and two other food additives and require companies to disclose ingredients they have declared safe on their own. It passed the state Senate 60-0 on March 23 and the Assembly on April 21, according to the Senate’s legislative record, and Hochul has not acted on it. Its sponsors and food-safety advocates dispute the industry’s cost figures.
Cooke wrote that the measure, Senate Bill S1239, would raise the cost of supplying food in New York by an estimated $1.8 billion, or roughly $620 per household each year. School meal programs and WIC could face about $60 million in new annual costs, she wrote, and building the state infrastructure to manage the law could cost up to $35 million. Her op-ed did not cite a source for the figures.
The $1.8 billion, $620 and $60 million figures match an analysis by Policy Navigation Group that was commissioned by the American Beverage Association and released by the industry-backed Food Ingredient…
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