KANSAS CITY — The US Food and Drug Administration aimed to remove all synthetic dyes from the US food supply by the end of this year. Reaching that goal might not happen, but the transition to clean label colors is far from a failure.
Thanks to increasing raw material supplies and recently approved natural sources of color, the shift away from synthetic/artificial colors should move at a steady pace for the rest of the decade.
The FDA in April 2025 said it planned to work with food and beverage companies to phase out all petroleum-based synthetic dyes from the US food supply by the end of 2026. The dyes are Green No. 3, Red No. 3 and No. 40, Yellow No. 5 and No. 6, Blue No. 1 and No. 2, Citrus Red No. 2 and Orange B.
“The federal piece is voluntary with no enforcement,” explained Kelly Anderson, corporate R&D chef and founder of DyeConverter, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help consumer packaged goods companies find alternatives to artificial dyes. “So the teeth are coming from elsewhere.”
Removing Red No. 3 is not voluntary. The FDA has banned that color, with an effective date of 2027. Laws in California and other states are slated to go into effect after 2026, Anderson said, and Walmart plans to eliminate synthetic dyes and other ingredients from its private label products by January 2027.
“When the country’s largest grocer sets that bar, compliance stops being optional,” said Anderson, who is based in Los Angeles. “So everything gone by December? No. Irreversibly committed over the next 18 to 24 months? Absolutely.”
A “massive” industry shift is currently underway, driven by consumer demand and state laws, said Brittany Jones, director of marketing for Sensient Food Colors, North America, O’Fallon, Mo.
“Major brands like Grupo Bimbo, General Mills, Kraft Heinz and many more have made public commitments to eliminate artificial colors from their product portfolios,” Jones said. “Brands are implementing these changes in phases, with key transitions rolling out this year, next year and in 2028.”
Judging by company commitments and state laws, the transition away from artificial colors looks bright. But, considering realities in reformulations, the outlook dims. Artificial colors generally cost less than those from natural sources, and they are brighter and more likely to attract consumers’ attention.
“FDA has indicated that it’s working with industry on the transition away from petroleum-based synthetic dyes, and many companies are already making public commitments,” said Alice Lee, technical marketing manager for GNT USA, Dallas, NC. “At the same time, this is not a simple, one-for-one ingredient swap across the food supply. Natural color performance depends on the full product matrix, including pH, heat, light exposure, processing conditions and packaging.
“For GNT, the focus is on helping manufacturers make color decisions that work technically, support brand identity and align with consumer expectations.”
Lee said the pace of change will vary by category, brand and application.
“Some products are relatively straightforward to transition, while others require more development work, validation, supply planning and consumer testing,” she said. “In some cases, manufacturers may be looking for a very close match to an existing synthetic color. In others, the better approach may be to rethink the visual target, refresh the product’s appearance or build natural color into a broader product story. That’s especially true for new innovations, where brands have more flexibility to design the product experience around colors from plant-based sources from the beginning.”
Synthetic dyes can be scaled differently than colors made from fruits, vegetables, plants, algae or other natural sources, Lee said.
“These raw materials need to be cultivated, harvested, processed and quality-controlled,” she said. “That makes long-term planning and supplier partnerships important.”
‘Massive undertaking’
Brands feature dozens of products that may be converted to naturally sourced colors, said Paul Manning, president and chief executive officer of Sensient Technologies Corp., the parent company of Sensient Colors, in an April 24 earnings call.
“That’s a massive undertaking,” Manning said. “These are all new launches. They require new packaging. They require new formulation, production scale-up. In some cases, (Sensient) customers need to implement capital in their plants to process it differently.”
Sensient expects to spend between $225 million and $250 million in capital on natural sources of color over the next couple years, he said.
Butterfly pea extract may help stabilize and expand the naturally-sourced color supply chain in many food and beverage categories.
| Photo: ©PKHEAWTASANG – STOCK.ADOBE.COM“We are not seeing any slowdown in conversion activity, and I will reaffirm what I previously stated, that the US conversion to natural colors is the single largest opportunity in Sensient’s history,” Manning said. “We are continuing investments around the world to increase our production capacity and to optimize our product portfolio.”
Anderson of DyeConverter said priorities may start with products sold in school channels, because of state mandates, and then move to food companies’ highest-profile, highest-margin flagship brands.
“A Kraft or Pepsi ping-pongs across categories based on what sells, not by formulation type,” she said. “The long tail comes after the deadline and takes another two to three years. Getting all the way there needs natural color supply at scale and at cost parity, reformulation that survives heat and pH, and solving a supply crunch I see coming around Q4 2026 into Q1 2027, when demand outruns what suppliers can ship.”
Approved colors
Government action is increasing supply, too. In the past 18 months, the FDA has approved or expanded category authorization for butterfly pea flower extract, gardenia blue, galdieria extract blue, calcium phosphate and myoglobin, Sensient’s Jones said.
“Three of these sources (butterfly pea flower extract, gardenia blue/genipin and galdieria extract blue) enable blue, green and purple hues, expanding the options for a historically challenging natural hue range,” she said. “While already approved for many categories, the expanded permissibility in cereal and snacks for butterfly pea flower extract helps stabilize and expand the natural color supply chain, as huito-based color solutions have primarily been used in these categories due to limited permissible sources.
“For example, by utilizing butterfly pea flower extract, Sensient Food Colors produces a heat-stable, natural green solution. This category expansion enables snack brand categories like extruded or baked chips to achieve vibrant and stable guacamole hues, among others.”
The FDA in February approved beetroot red as a color option in food. Phytolon, Ltd., which has a US office in Monmouth Junction, NJ, produces beetroot red through a natural fermentation process of baker’s yeast in a process similar to beer brewing, said Tal Zeltzer, PhD, co-founder and chief technology officer.
“Phytolon’s proprietary yeast strain produces beet pigments using the same enzymatic pathway found in beets themselves, starting from tyrosine, an amino acid that the yeast naturally synthesizes and utilizes as protein building blocks,” she said.
Purity distinguishes Phytolon’s beetroot red from other non-certified colors, Zeltzer said.
“Other color additives may contain high levels of sugar, enzymes that can further degrade the pigment and soil-borne impurities such as nitrates,” she said. “Phytolon’s baker’s yeast is a betanin powerhouse, producing the pigment in a highly pure manner. The result is beet color with unmatched performance, including heat and pH stability. Achieving these attributes simultaneously is particularly challenging for non-certified red colorants, especially in bread and baked goods applications, where colors must withstand bothelevated temperatures and relatively high pH conditions.”
The FDA, however, in April delayed indefinitely the effective date to use beetroot red after GMO/Toxin Free USA, New Fairfield, Conn., protested that genetically engineered synthetic biology food dyes should not be allowed to be labeled as natural and no products made with synthetic biology (SynBio) food dyes should be allowed to claim no artificial colors.
“The FDA broadly distinguishes between two categories of color additives: artificial certified colors, which are typically derived from petroleum-based sources, and non-certified colors, which can be derived from a variety of sources via different manufacturing processes,” Zeltzer said.
DyeConverter’s Anderson said genetically modified and genetically engineered are not the same.
“But here’s what bothers me: Everyone debates whether biosynthetic beetroot red is ‘natural,’ while nobody mentions that plenty of today’s ‘natural’ colors are extracted with harsh solvents like hexane, residues you don’t even have to declare on the label,” she said. “The natural badge is already murkier than people think. My position isn’t for or against GE (genetically engineered) colors. It’s case by case.
“As a principle, I’m pro clean science: transparent, rigorously studied. Food science earned its bad name over decades of lobbying for additives that weren’t natural and weren’t good for us.
“Whether a GE colorant deserves to be called natural depends entirely on the process and the honesty behind it, and the labeling rules haven’t caught up to the science.”
Blue colors in baking
Another FDA ruling in February added a blue color option. The FDA previously had allowed the use of spirulina (Arthrospira platensis) as a color in many food and beverage categories, but its use in the baked foods category was limited to decorations, fillings, inclusions and coatings. When the FDA approved beetroot red, it also approved spirulina for use in most baked foods, agreeing with a GNT petition.
“That’s significant because blue is one of the more technically challenging shades to achieve from plant-based sources,” Lee said. “These options vary significantly in source, production method, regulatory status, scalability and application fit. For manufacturers, the key is not just whether a color is permitted, but whether it is suitable for the specific product, process, desired shade and positioning.”
The FDA in April delayed the effective date for the expanded uses of spirulina after Obelisk Tech Systems Inc., Thomasville, Ga., objected to it because of heavy metal concerns.
Spirulina extracts are used in all types of bakery applications in the European Union and in other parts of the world, Lee said.
“The new blues are giving manufacturers more options, but they’re not eliminating the need for application-specific color development,” she said. “The expanded color toolbox is helpful because different technologies perform differently, depending on the product. For example, some blue options may be better-suited to applications with heat or pH challenges, while others may be more appropriate for beverages, dairy, confections, bakery or premium-positioned products.
“The key point is that color choice is becoming more strategic. Manufacturers are not only asking, ‘Can this replace a synthetic dye?’ They’re also asking, ‘Does this color solution fit the product, the brand, the label, the supply demands and the consumer expectation?’”
#challenge #changing #colors
About the Author
