Speaking on how beverages like soda, seltzers, and sports drinks can fit into the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement at a Wednesday morning Breitbart News event, Keane emphasized how the private sector can contribute to President Donald Trump’s and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s efforts by providing consumers education and options.
When Marlow asked if “delicious non-alcoholic beverages” can be “MAHA,” Keane said “absolutely.”
“Of course we support that, and we’ve been working on that for much of two decades, including in new and innovative ways since the president took office this year,” the industry leader said, before expanding on three “core elements” that his group’s members, which include Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Keurig Dr. Pepper, are using to accomplish the MAHA agenda.
American Beverage Company Innovations Display Table (Matthew Perdie/Breitbart News)
“First is providing as much meaningful choice to the consumer that you can, and that’s where the innovation comes in. Secondly, is to be as transparent and have as much accessible transparency for the consumer about our products as possible, and then empower that consumer to make the decisions that are best for them and their families,” Keane explained. “And this is what we’ve been hard at work at for some time.”
He went on to highlight non-soda options that have been produced with zero sugar, like new energy drinks, sports drinks, teas, and seltzers.
“That’s really where the innovation is, and it tastes good.”
As Trump and Kennedy Jr. celebrate MAHA wins, like companies providing transparency or removing certain ingredients from their products, Keane said ABA members have jumped at the opportunity without being forced to do so by the government:
We were the first industry to do that, and that was an important part of our transparency, in helping people discern the choices that we were providing. But then the president came in, and he continued to raise the transparency issue, particularly on the ingredients. So if you look behind a nutrition facts panel, you’ll see our ingredients of that product, and it’s in small type, because, you know, our cans are small. And it was a legitimate question, you know, “What about these ingredients? What’s in these ingredients?” People were asking an incredibly fair question. So we listened, which is core, and we jumped in and did something about it. And we created this new website called Good to Know.
The Good to Know website was designed by ABA to “empower consumers with credible, science-based information about common ingredients found in beverages – including what they are, what they do and the safety assessments of food safety agencies in the United States, Europe and Canada.”
“[The ABA] took up that mantle 20 years ago, realizing that, yes, we have obesity in this country, including childhood obesity,” Keane said, recognizing one of the biggest health issues in the twenty-first century. “We need to own our piece of that.”
Instead of just making small changes, as non-alcoholic beverages only made up seven percent of the calories in the American diet when the group got started, Keane said, “We took on way more than seven percent of trying to do something about it. And that’s where the innovation came about, the new products.”
“The amount of sugar in the marketplace is down 45 percent in the last 20 years, while obesity rates have been going up,” he noted.
One of the biggest ways beverage companies targeted childhood obesity was deciding to take their regular full-calorie sodas out of schools after listening to parents on the issue:
So at the time, one of the big concerns was what was in the vending machines at schools. Parents were raising that. So our companies got together, they listened, they heard, and they proactively came up with an initiative to take all full-calorie soft drinks out of schools voluntarily, and got it done. So they didn’t just make the pledge. They got it done. They recognized that schools are unique places where parents aren’t there to help their child make a decision [on] what to choose, so we put in options that parents are more comfortable with.
The full Breitbart News event can be viewed here, featuring more remarks from Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL), Dr. Christopher J. Borgert, Moms for America Action Executive Director Emily Stack, American Commitment President and Unleash America Principal Phil Kerpen, and Institute for Liberty President and CPAC’s Center for Regulatory Freedom Director Andrew Langer.
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.
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