California Law Mandates Transparency, But Baby Food Makers Fall Short

Beech-Nut and Happy Family Organics are violating the spirit of a California law requiring commercial baby food makers to provide consumers with heavy metal test results so parents can steer clear of products containing concerning amounts of lead, mercury, arsenic and cadmium.

Since Jan. 1, 2025, all commercial manufacturers of baby food sold in California must make their test results accessible on their web pages, and through UPC codes on the food packaging.

Yet, instead of transparency, some companies built barriers that leave parents to navigate a maze just to find out how much heavy metal is in their baby’s food. Beech-Nut, for instance, requires customers to accurately complete multiple steps before showing results for just a single product. Happy Family provides no test results for any products if a “best-by” date has passed, despite the law requiring results to remain visible for one month after a best-by date.

And most report some test results in a way that can obscure how much a product exceeds California’s legal limits.

On the other hand, California-based Plum Organics makes it very simple to see what’s in its foods — a single click shows customers a spreadsheet with test results for hundreds of products.

In addition, of 1,130 available test results reviewed in April, dozens showed they contained more lead per serving than allowed under California law. And five products – one from Happy Baby and four from Gerber – contained more inorganic arsenic than these two European-owned companies would be allowed to sell in Europe. Neither the U.S. Food and Drug Administration nor California have set consumption limits for the metal, which is known to cause cancer and cripple neurological development.

But parents would never know that from looking at the test results, which every baby food maker provides in parts per billion (ppb) instead of micrograms (μg), which is what California uses to measure compliance. While the law technically only requires reporting in ppb, a more accurate and helpful disclosure would be letting parents know how many micrograms occur in one serving.

As a condition of being allowed to sell their products in California, commercial baby food makers since Jan. 1, 2025, must post heavy metal test results on their websites. The goal of the law, AB 899, is to help parents make informed decisions about the foods they feed their babies and toddlers. The law applies to all baby foods sold, manufactured, or distributed in California, excluding infant formula.

Maryland passed a similar testing and public disclosure law in May 2024, and Virginia became the third state just days ago, on May 2.

“California’s reporting process has been in place long enough for the companies to have the bugs worked out,” said Vineet Dubey, a consumer environmental attorney with Custodio & Dubey, of Los Angeles.

Click HERE to visit our Instagram page for a video from Vineet with more of his expertise.

“What we discovered is that of the five manufacturers we checked, everyone seems to be following the letter of the law. But Beech-Nut, Happy Family and, to some extent, Gerber, are making it as difficult as possible to see what their tests show,” Dubey said. “The goal of this law is simple, let parents know how much heavy metals is in a particular baby food. The way these companies are implementing the law is the opposite of simple, they are making it as difficult as possible for parents to locate and understand this information.”

Between April 1 and April 30, websites for Gerber, Happy Family, Plum Organics and Earth’s Best were checked for available test results. “We wanted to see how well they were complying,” Dubey said, “how easy it was to find product test results, how easy it was to access product test results, and how many product test results were provided.”

This also revealed loopholes in California’s law that allowed companies to create obstacles to providing the information and inconsistency in reports over whether a test result is for one serving or for multiple servings.

And while California requires a warning label on any baby food that contains .5 micrograms of lead per serving, none of the baby food companies provides any information showing how a single serving of food fared under California’s lead limit – an easy calculation.

Beech-Nut Creates Unnecessary Hurdles

Beech-Nut products could not be reviewed. That’s because Beech-Nut’s test results are unavailable unless a customer is actually holding of one of their foods. There is no way for a consumer to easily review a range of baby foods to see which are cleanest. Here’s how Beech-Nut prevents easy access to the information required by law:

• Customers must first locate and correctly enter three different codes found on the baby food packaging: UPC, Best By and Lot Code.
• Once that is done, customers must verify via Captcha that they are not a robot.
• Then, if the batch was tested, customers are first presented with a screendescribing parts per billion and making assurances about Beech-Nut’s internal testing lab.
• Before providing test results, customers are required to click on one of three statements: “I fully understand the above,” “I think I understand the above,” or “I do not understand the above.”
• Clicking on any of those finally brings up the test results.

“That’s a helluva lot to ask of a parent on their smart phone while standing in the baby food aisle. Beech-Nut’s goal here may be to wear down customers who simply want to see how clean a jar of baby food is,” Dubey said.

“This can’t possibly be what legislators envisioned when they called for transparency from baby food makers,” he added. “Each manufacturer should be publishing easy-to-access, easy-to-understand results, so that parents can make informed decisions regarding which baby food to purchase for their children, without having to jump through 10 hoops to find this data for a single product.”

Happy Family’s “Best By” Barrier Violates AB 899

Happy Family Organics doesn’t force consumers to jump through a series of hoops like Beech-Nut. Still, they severely limit the test results they do provide. When the website was checked on April 27, it only displayed products with an April 29 best-by date. Only 14 results were displayed.But those results were completely gone when the website was checked again on May 5, in apparent violation of California’s AB 899, which requires manufacturers to make test results for toxic elements publicly available on their websites for the duration of the product’s shelf life plus one month, Dubey said.

The next visible test result is for a pouch of Purple Carrots, Bananas, Avocados & Quinoa best by Jan. 5, 2026. Happy Baby makes more than 100 kinds of baby foods.

The Numbers Game

Every baby food maker, except for Earth’s Best, reports some test results using the “less-than” (<) symbol. This is important because this lack of specificity – which they provide in other products — obscures how much lead or other heavy metal is in the baby food.For example, if a food contains 4.5 parts per billion of lead in one 113 gram pouch of sweet potato, it could be reported as < 5 ppb. But anything between 4.5 and 4.9 ppb violates California’s lead limit – while anything between 4.1 and 4.4 doesn’t.

“The spirit of AB 899 is to give consumers facts they need to ensure informed decision-making,” Dubey said. “This lack of specificity defeats that purpose andkeeps the public in the dark.”Still, baby food makers are not prohibited from reporting test results this way. That’s because AB 899 does not specify the exact format in which these test results must be reported.

Only Earth’s Best reported specific numbers in every available test result reviewed.

Lead Remains a Problem

Of the products listed, Gerber had three foods among the 136 shown that contained more lead than allowed by California. Happy Baby also had one in the 14 available results, and Earth’s Best also had one among the 40 results provided.

Plum Organics provided test results for 936 products; 81 failed California’s lead standards, with four at more than twice the .5 limit.

“That means about one in 12 Plum Organics products has concerning levels of lead in one serving,” Dubey said. “But let’s not forget that they provided far more test results to consumers than any of the others we checked, and they didso without putting up any barriers to the information. Hopefully, Plum Organics uses these results as a call to action to clean up their products and significantly lessen the amount of lead in them.”

Changes Are Needed

California led the nation with its baby food safety law, but now it’s clear that some changes need to be made to really provide the transparency consumers were expecting, Dubey said.

“First, these barriers created by Beech-Nut and Happy Baby need to be legislatively knocked down. Plum Organics’ simple transparency should be the standard, so consumers have the most useful information,” Dubey said.

“It should be required that test results be based upon a single serving, and should be posted in specific numbers, without hiding them behind ‘less-than’ camouflage,” he added. “And test results should also be reported in micrograms per single serving so consumers can at once see whether the food complies, or violates, California’s health warning limit.”

Concerned about what’s in your baby’s food and what could still be hiding? Click HERE to visit our resource page and use the image below to guide your research across different brands.