California has become the first U.S. state to ban the use of four potentially harmful food and drink additives. On October 7, 2023, Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law California.
Efforts in the United States and abroad to address the chronic disease epidemic have led to the emergence of voluntary industry agreements as a substitute for regulatory approaches to improve the healthfulness of foods and beverages. Because of the lack of access to data and limited budgets, evaluations of these agreements have often been limited to process evaluation with less focus on outcomes and impact. Increasing scientific scope and rigor in evaluating voluntary food and beverage industry agreements would improve potential public health benefits and understanding of the effects of these agreements. We describe how evaluators can provide formative, process, and outcome assessment and discuss challenges and opportunities for impact assessment. We explain how logic models, industry profiles, quasi-experimental designs, mixed-methods approaches, and third-party data can improve the effectiveness of agreement design and evaluation. These methods could result in more comprehensive and