FDA has asked food companies to substitute artificial colors with ‘natural ingredients for American children as they already do in Europe and Canada.’
General Mills, which owns a wide range of snack and baked products in the United States, announced plans to remove food colors from all its products, in a June 17 statement.
Based in Minnesota, some of the company’s popular brands include Cheerios, Nature Valley, Blue Buffalo, Häagen-Dazs, Old El Paso, Pillsbury, Betty Crocker, Totino’s, and Annie’s.
In the press release, the company said it will remove synthetic dyes “from all its U.S. cereals and all K-12 school foods by summer 2026. Additionally, the company will work to remove certified colors from its full U.S. retail portfolio by the end of 2027.”
General Mills clarified that the change will only impact a small portion of its school portfolio as “nearly all” of its school offerings are made without food colors. Similarly, 85 percent of the full U.S. retail portfolio is currently made without colors.
Jeff Harmening, company chairman and CEO, said that the company’s recent reformulation changes will ensure the entire catalog of products offered will be without colors.
General Mills’s announcement followed a statement by another major corporation, Kraft Heinz, on the same day.
Heinz said on Tuesday that it will not launch any new products with artificial colors in the United States and will remove the additives from its existing product portfolio by the end of 2027.
The companies’ announcements follow a call by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), along with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), to phase out all petroleum-based synthetic dyes from the nation’s food supply, as part of the broader Make America Healthy Again initiative.
“For too long, some food producers have been feeding Americans petroleum-based chemicals without their knowledge or consent,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in an April 22 statement.
Kennedy said that the “poisonous compounds” offered no nutritional benefits and adversely impacted children’s health and development.
The federal administration will work with companies to “get these toxic dyes out of the foods our families eat every day,” Kennedy said.
