California Can’t Afford A Costly, Confusing New GRAS Bill
AB 2034 Is Duplicative & Costly
With No New Consumer Protections
AB 2034 creates a broad, overlapping regulatory framework that adds administrative burdens and costs for California and the food supply chain without clear public health benefits. In 2025, the Legislature enacted the Real Food, Healthy Kids Act AB 1264 (Gabriel), which already establishes a comprehensive framework for evaluating and regulating food ingredients, such as ultraprocessed foods, many of which are subject to this legislation.
AB 2034 layers on a second, overlapping system that reviews many of the same substances—adding cost and complexity with no new consumer protections.
AB 2034 Duplicates Existing Protections.
California already has multiple systems in place to evaluate the safety of food ingredients.
What is GRAS?
GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) is an FDA designation for ingredients that experts generally recognize as safe for intended use.
GRAS ingredients must meet the same “reasonable certainty of no harm” standard as other food additives, but they follow a different legal and regulatory pathway compared to other ingredients approved by the FDA.
California law already goes beyond GRAS by providing a more expansive public health framework that looks at entire categories of foods, not just individual ingredients.
- Under AB 1264, California’s scientific review considers how ingredients and processing affect public health.
HIGHER COSTS FOR FAMILIES
Policies targeting food ingredients have been linked to price increases of up to 12%, and AB 2034 could put similar upward pressure on grocery costs.
- Compliance Costs Get Built Into Prices
- Product Reformulation Drives Up Costs
- Supply Chain Complexity Increases Prices
- Delays and Uncertainty Add Hidden Costs