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Junk Food Giant Sugar Crashes In Part Due To MAHA Trends

Ser Amanito di Nicolao/Wikimedia commons

PepsiCo’s growth is depleting as many Americans opt for healthier snack options, Reuters reported Monday.

The company, whose products include many popular soft drink and snack food brands, saw its sales drop 2% in the second quarter of 2026, the outlet reported. This comes in part as Americans have been gravitating towards healthier food options such as those with higher protein and fiber and lower sugar.

PepsiCo has implemented price cuts on some of its most popular products such as Doritos, Cheetos, and Lay’s of up to 15% yet still faced depleting volume in sales of PepsiCo products, according to Reuters.

The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, first promoted in 2025 by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., seeks to eliminate ingredients and additives—such as artificial dyes—that it deems harmful to American health.

In November 2025, PepsiCo announced the “Simply NKD” line for Cheetos and Doritos that lack artificial flavors and colors.

“No color, no artificial flavors, same intensity- that’s simply NKD. Doritos and Cheetos are pioneering a snacking revolution, or a renaissance, if you will,” PepsiCo food US CEO Rachel Ferdinando said at the time.

Over half of American’s say that the healthiness of food is highly important to them when deciding what to eat, according to a 2025 Pew Research Center survey.

Furthermore, about half of American’s say they are actively trying to eat healthy, Statisica reported in 2023.

“Consumers have moved from snacking on autopilot to making much more deliberate decisions about what they eat and how often,” Suzy Davidkhanian, vice president and principal analyst at eMarketer said, according to Reuters.

PepsiCo’s decline also comes as the use of GLP-1 weight loss drugs such as Ozempic has increased to 21% of U.S. households in May 2025, the outlet reported.