July 08, 2026
Foley Hoag attorneys played a leading role in the Food and Drug Law Institute’s (FDLI) Top Food and Drug Cases 2025, an annual publication that highlights the most significant legal developments shaping the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, and consumer products industries.
August Horvath, chair of Foley Hoag’s Advertising & Marketing Practice, served as editor of the volume and authored its introduction, which examines a year marked by major regulatory shifts, significant appellate decisions, and evolving government priorities affecting the food and drug sectors.
In his introduction, August notes that 2025 brought a wave of consequential developments, from new regulatory priorities associated with the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement to landmark court decisions that both resolved longstanding legal questions and introduced new issues for industry stakeholders to navigate.
Associates Mital Patel and Katherine Luo also contributed to the publication, authoring a chapter on Natural Grocers v. Rollins, one of the year’s most significant food-labeling decisions. Their analysis examines the Ninth Circuit’s interpretation of the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard, including the court’s rejection of USDA’s detectability-based exemption for certain highly refined foods, its endorsement of “bioengineered” as the governing disclosure term, and its invalidation of certain QR code and text-message disclosure methods.
Mital and Katherine note that the decision is already prompting labeling changes across the marketplace and is likely to influence future agency rulemaking and compliance strategies throughout the food supply chain. Their chapter highlights the ruling’s broader significance for food manufacturers, retailers, and consumers, as well as its reinforcement of key administrative law principles governing federal agency action.
FDLI’s Top Food and Drug Cases is a widely recognized annual resource that provides practitioners, regulators, and industry stakeholders with analysis of the most significant court decisions and enforcement developments affecting FDA- and USDA-regulated products.
