Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is taking another run at defining ultraprocessed foods, a longtime target of his Make America Healthy Again movement.

The effort, led by the Department of Health and Human Services and involving senior White House officials, comes less than two weeks ahead of a midterm election in which turning out MAHA voters could prove pivotal for the GOP — and after months of complaints that the administration didn’t live up to its promises.

Conversations among officials have picked up over recent weeks after talks stalled this summer, said three administration officials who were granted anonymity to describe internal discussions.

Defining ultraprocessed foods, a step the government hasn’t taken before, could redirect Americans’ diets away from foods that Kennedy and his allies blame for the country's chronic disease epidemic. Kennedy and many MAHA advocates have called for ultraprocessed foods to carry warning labels that they believe would help Americans avoid harmful foods.

A higher-level meeting is scheduled for next week between Kennedy and senior White House officials to discuss the status of the food policy, two of the officials said.

The revived conversations signal potential progress on one of MAHA’s top priorities at a time when Republicans are struggling to persuade voters that they’ve delivered on their campaign pledges. MAHA support helped Republicans to victory in the 2024 election, but a series of Trump administration policies, including the Iran war and support for continued pesticide use, has dampened enthusiasm in the two years since. Many adherents are skeptical of the GOP’s commitment to their cause.

And while an incremental win on ultraprocessed foods would be a long-sought victory for Kennedy, it may be too little, too late for MAHA voters.

“If it were to happen before the midterms, that is great progress. That is more progress than any administration ever in history on the topic of the food industry,” said Vani Hari, a MAHA advocate and ally of Kennedy who goes by “Food Babe” to her MAHA followers online. “Is it enough to change the trajectory of the spirit of the voter? Probably not." HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard defended the administration’s progress on ultraprocessed food.

“This work never stalled,” she said in a statement. “The Trump Administration is moving forward with the federal government’s first definition of ultraprocessed foods to inform future nutrition research. In two years, we have accomplished more on food policy than any administration in modern history.”Kennedy’s food policy success has been halting. He has secured commitments from companies to eliminate artificial dyes from their foods, required more transparency from food companies releasing novel ingredients into the food supply and released revised federal dietary guidelines that promote whole foods.

But other central promises have stalled: His bid to rid the nation’s largest food aid program of junk food was stymied by a federal court, and a regulation that would further cut down on sugar in school meals has yet to be released, despite a promise to reveal the rule in September. Defining ultraprocessed foods has also been held up after pushback from industry.

In July, officials released a request for information — a first step in the regulatory process — for a potential definition. A month later, a proposed definition of ultraprocessed foods was set to be publicly released at an event at the Health Department’s headquarters, but officials at the White House reportedly throttled the plan under pressure from food companies. Since the August event, Trump administration officials have met with dozens of lobbying groups representing the food industry, food companies, nonprofits, scientists and others aiming to shape the final proposal, public records show.

At the event in August, Kennedy touted the definition of ultraprocessed foods as a tool to “change how the federal government oversees what's in our food and how we understand the foods that Americans eat.”

White House spokesperson Allison Schuster, in a statement, called MAHA a “key presidential priority” and said that the Trump administration “continues to work closely with stakeholders and industry leaders to continue overhauling our country’s food and updating nutritional guidance.”Food companies have long expressed concern about a federal definition of ultraprocessed foods and have different opinions about what it should encompass. They argue that the scientific community remains divided over whether processing food diminishes its nutritional value and point to positive attributes of processed food, like longer shelf lives.

California’s new law defining ultraprocessed foods in school meals has also prompted industry to decry a potential patchwork of state definitions that could be cumbersome for business.

Defining ultraprocessed foods wouldn’t require regulation, though it would enable the Food and Drug Administration to shape future regulatory efforts, including package labeling. It would also give state lawmakers, many of whom have jumped on the MAHA bandwagon, parameters for their own regulatory efforts.

Kennedy had previously pledged to get a definition by April and said that the FDA would immediately follow with a system grading food for consumers.

"As soon as we do that, we're going to do front of package food labeling," Kennedy said in a February podcast interview with Joe Rogan, adding that he was interested in labels with green, yellow or red lights "telling you whether or not it's going to be good for you." It’s not clear if that policy remains on the table.

MAHA advocates like Hari consider a definition for ultraprocessed foods a step in the right direction, even if it isn’t a silver bullet.

“What it does is it puts pressure on the food industry to start looking at their formulas and the chemicals that they're using, and start to reduce the number of chemicals like they do in Europe already,” Hari said.