Unpacked: How brands are complying with California’s new baby food transparency law

The issue of heavy metal contamination in baby food began to gain mainstream attention in February 2021 after a Congressional report uncovered “significant” levels of heavy metals in several top baby food brands. In late 2023, California passed Assembly Bill 899, which laid out testing and transparency requirements for companies that sell baby food in California. The new law requires brands to begin making labeling changes in 2025.

Some experts in the manufacturing and labeling space say such laws could be the tip of the iceberg around ingredient transparency. Jackie Bowen, executive director of the consumer advocacy nonprofit Clean Label Project, said a similar law in Maryland goes into effect in 2026. And more than two dozen state attorney generals have asked the federal government to begin regulating heavy metal levels in baby food. 

“I cannot envision a future where consumers want access to less information,” she said. “This allows consumers to pop the hood and kick the tires, and do their homework and learn a little more about what is in the food supply.” 

Here’s a breakdown of what brands are required to share and the implications for food safety discussions.

How heavy metal traces get into baby food
Heavy metal contamination is an issue that crosses the entire food supply, Bowen from the Clean Label Project said. “You’re not going to get zero,” she said. That’s because elements like lead and mercury are naturally occurring elements, as explained by the FDA, and trace levels can wind up in food through the soil. However, elevated levels can be harmful. It’s particularly concerning for parents of young children because such contaminants can potentially interfere with brain development, according to the FDA.

What AB 899 asks brands to do
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 899 in October 2023. Lawmakers crafted the bill to bring more transparency to the levels of potential contaminants in baby food products.

Since the start of 2024, companies selling baby food products in California are required to conduct monthly heavy metals testing on their products. This is to ensure any traces of arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury are at safe levels. Then, starting in January 2025, they’ll have to disclose those results and the product’s lot number or batch number to customers on their website. The law also requires companies to put a QR code on each product package that links customers to the product’s testing results. That page must also include links to the FDA’s information about toxic heavy metals.

The law doesn’t specify the testing process that brands need to undertake to comply. Bowen from the Clean Label Project also said the bill doesn’t explicitly say how they should share the information. For example, there are no requirements around what additional context brands should give, if any. “It’s a transparency law,” she said. “It holds brands accountable by saying, ‘We’re making all your information public.'”

Who is required to comply
Any company that sells baby food in the state of California will have to comply. The law is intended to apply to products meant for kids 2 years or younger — including private labels. This excludes infant formula, but it does include dietary supplements.

Why brands are carefully considering compliance
One of the biggest challenges for brands is how to share testing information. The potential for misinformation is ripe. 

Dr. Joseph Zagorski, a toxicologist for the Center of Research on Ingredient Safety at Michigan State University, said context is key for putting this information out to customers without causing alarm. For instance, brands shouldn’t simply list the results that show numbers without any explanation of what they mean. Instead, they could provide examples to show how much of a product someone would need to consume to approach toxicity levels. That way they can better understand what the amount in the product means. 

“Without presenting the results in a way that people can easily grasp, consumers may misinterpret the information, leading to unnecessary concerns, diminished trust in the product and potential changes in their purchasing behavior,” he said. 

How some companies are responding
Organic children’s food brand Once Upon a Farm worked with accredited labs and toxicologists to help inform its efforts around heavy metal contaminants even before AB899 was in place, said Katie Marston, the company’s chief marketing officer. Ensuring compliance with California’s new, specific regulations, however, was “a significant undertaking,” she said. The company reviewed all its ingredients and sourcing for its hundreds of SKUs to ensure it knew what each product’s testing process or baselines would be. Each could be different based on its unique ingredients, as heavy metal traces in soil can be different from plant to plant or farm to farm. But this allowed the company to obtain detailed information that it could share with consumers.

To comply with the consumer-facing requirements, Once Upon a Farm signed a long-term contract with Brij, a marketing platform that specializes in building QR code-enabled pages for brands.

Kait Stephens, CEO and founder at Brij, said the company is working with multiple baby food brands in AB 899 compliance. The companies upload their test results every month, which get put into the public-facing database.

The service aims to make the test results navigable and understandable, Stephens said. Simply showing customers printouts of test results without any context or definitions — such as knowing what “parts per billions” means — could be jarring, misleading or cause unwarranted concern.

“A brand can be compliant with the letter of this regulation by having a QR code that goes to a PDF lab test result,” Stephens said. “But there’s a lot of opportunity to, in that consumer-facing experience, really educate the consumer.”

What’s next for companies, the technology and the laws
At Once Upon a Farm, product labels that have the QR code will start hitting shelves in January. But Marston said the company will also roll out the testing database for all of its products. That means parents can look up the heavy metal testing for its snacks and meals meant for kids older than 2.

“There are so many levels of consumers and it is our job to satisfy those that want to be at 10,000 feet and those that want a microscope to the best of our ability,” she said. “I think many parents just want to feel good about what they’re giving their kids to eat, at the end of the day, and we shouldn’t over-complicate that.”

But there could be more ingredient safety regulations to come. Other states are following in California’s footsteps; Maryland will require baby food products QR code labels linking to test results starting in January 2026. Some politicians at federal and state levels are increasingly calling for the FDA to get involved with more concrete regulations. Experts say it’s also possible that such rules could expand to more categories of food, not just what’s meant for babies.

Bowen from the Clean Label Project said such transparency initiatives chip away at a greater conversation around the safety of the nation’s food supply and issues like soil quality, nutrient density and farming practices.

“I think we’ll only see more when it comes to consumer demand for transparency,” she said. “If we want to talk about high-quality, nutritionally dense baby food, we need to talk about high-quality, nutrient-dense ingredients.”