Howden Launches Dedicated US Food and Beverage Practice

Global insurance broker Howden has established a specialized US Food and Beverage Practice to assist North American companies in managing a landscape of increasingly interconnected operational and financial risks. The new division aims to address a "cascade" of exposures where trade tariffs, regulatory reformulations, and labeling requirements trigger simultaneous recall and litigation threats. This strategic move comes as the industry faces rising FDA recall numbers and significant margin pressure from trade policies implemented over the previous year.

Led by Managing Director Matt Replogle, a veteran with over 20 years of industry experience, the new practice targets large consumer-facing businesses, distributors, and packaging firms. The initiative is designed to move beyond standard single-line insurance programs by offering cross-disciplinary risk management and loss mitigation. This approach addresses what Howden identifies as a "cascade logic," where a single event like a tariff-driven ingredient change can lead to labeling errors, subsequent product recalls, and expensive consumer class action litigation.

The launch coincides with a measurable increase in regulatory activity and legal exposure within the sector. FDA data shows food and beverage recalls rose to 295 in 2025, while the Consumer Product Safety Commission recorded 357 recalls during the same period. Legal experts anticipate this trend will fuel further litigation in 2026, as plaintiffs increasingly leverage state consumer protection statutes to pair recall announcements with broader legal claims. Additionally, the FDA’s mandate to phase out petroleum-based synthetic dyes by the end of 2026 is forcing widespread reformulations, which introduces new supply chain dependencies and heightened labeling risks.

Financial pressures are also mounting due to trade policy, with a Lineage Logistics survey of 1,000 supply chain decision-makers revealing that 73% of food companies expect tariffs to negatively impact their 2026 finances. Because tariff-driven cost increases typically take 12 to 18 months to manifest in consumer pricing, the industry is currently absorbing the delayed impact of 2025 trade actions. This squeeze on margins is occurring just as the costs associated with recalls and "natural" or "plant-based" labeling claims are reaching new heights, necessitating the specialized brokerage support Howden aims to provide.