RFK Jr. pushes food companies to cut artificial dyes

Jessica DiNapoli, Reuters

NEW YORK: When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. became US health secretary last February, he pushed companies to ditch artificial dyes, a critical issue for supporters in the "Make America Healthy Again" social movement backing him. Nearly a year later, artificial dyes are still prevalent across grocery store aisles, lending vibrant colours to products ranging from salad dressing to breakfast cereals and beverages. Some companies have responded to Kennedy's request by reformulating products now and promising to ditch the dyes fully over time. Compliance is voluntary on the federal level, though companies are now facing new and proposed state laws on the issue, adding to the pressure.

A Reuters review of 15 of the US's biggest food makers found that two, soup maker The Campbell's Co and Switzerland-based Nestle , have pledged to remove artificial dyes before the end of 2026, the initial timeline proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services, ⁠led by Kennedy. Seven, including Jell-O marketer Kraft Heinz and Conagra Brands, have committed to eliminating them by the end of 2027. Six, including Oreo-maker Mondelez and Coca-Cola , have not made any promises but some are introducing dye-free options or said they're working on it, without providing a deadline for the switch.

"Nearly 40% of the entire packaged US food and beverage supply has publicly committed to removing artificial dyes in the near term," a spokesperson for the health department said. The spokesperson added that the department asked and the industry largely agreed to phase the dyes out of school foods by the upcoming school year, and all foods starting in 2027. Food manufacturers taking longer to change are citing cost, scarcity of natural ingredients and other logistical hurdles as reasons for the delay. Conagra Brands, maker of Duncan Hines baking mixes, is weighing how shifting to natural dyes would impact retail prices.

The company has tested beets and other vegetables as replacements for Red 40 in its red velvet cake mix, but has not yet made the swap, a spokesperson said. "Something like red velvet cake, it needs to be red, so we're not going to sell gray velvet cake," said Conagra CEO Sean Connolly, in an interview. "We use beets as an alternative and the issue there on some colours is 'Will there be a sufficient supply? If supply gets pinched, will it drive up the cost?'"

Products containing Red 40, widely used in the US, require a warning label in the UK and European Union. The food companies face few consequences for stalling or skipping out on Kennedy's request. Those who are changing ingredient lists also say they're responding to shifting demand as consumers look for products with fewer artificial additives.

Consumer advocates say the dyes worsen ADHD symptoms and other behavioral issues in children, and Kennedy has raised similar concerns. Scientists say the health impacts of the colours, which do not add nutritional value to food, require more research. A study published last fall in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics found that foods that use artificial dyes had significantly more sugar on average than those without the additives, but lower levels of sodium and saturated fat.

It also found that more than one-quarter of the top food categories marketed to kids, such as pre-prepared meals and baked goods, had synthetic dyes, versus just 11% in other types of packaged products. Marion Nestle, a professor emerita of health, nutrition and food studies at New York University unrelated to the Nestle company, said manufacturers are stalling because removing dyes may hurt sales, which are already under pressure due to price hikes and consumers cutting back on purchases.

"These experiments have been done, and the results are not pretty for the food companies," she said. "Sales go down, and stockholders don't like that."

In 2015, General Mills pledged to remove artificial dyes from its cereals including pink and green hued Trix, and replace it with colors derived from radishes, purple carrots and turmeric. But consumers revolted so General Mills re-released artificially colored "Classic Trix" in 2017 and shelved the dye-free alternative. The company has again promised to remove the dyes from its cereals by this summer and from all of its products by the end of 2027. General Mills did not respond to a request for comment.

Sam's Club started removing artificial dyes from all of its private label products in 2022. The company declined to comment but said in a press release that taking dyes out of cake icing and sports drinks was the most challenging.

Its previously bright blue Member's Mark sports drinks are now purplish, the company said. PepsiCo, which makes Lay's chips, is among the companies that have not set a deadline or made a promise to eliminate the dyes. It has instead introduced alternative products without them.

Ian Puddephat, PepsiCo's vice president of ingredients in foods research and development, said supply constraints are limiting the company's ability to switch to natural dyes, which typically come from fruits and vegetables. Finding natural blue colour for PepsiCo's Quaker brands, which include Cap'n Crunch cereal, is "particularly difficult," he said, adding the hue is generally sourced from algae.

The company is launching low-sugar Gatorade coloured with vegetables this spring which will have the same bright hue as before, but it is also keeping the originals with dyes on the shelf.

Some consumers, particularly those who care about natural ingredients, are potentially open to less brightly colored products, Puddephat said.

To appeal to them, PepsiCo late last year rolled out Doritos and Cheetos Simply NKD, which do not use artificial colors and are far less orange than the widely available originals.

Paris-listed Danone also found some consumers will buy products stripped of their colour but that taste the same. The company is rolling out Light & Fit key lime yogurt without Blue No. 1, used to give a greenish tinge, in February, said Susan Zaripheh, chief research and innovation officer for Danone US & Canada. While the companies are under no legal obligation to eliminate artificial dyes on a federal level, new state laws are starting to emerge, with 151 bills affecting packaged food proposed last year in 40 different states, according to the Consumer Brands Association, a trade association representing food companies.

Ten states, including Arizona and Utah, passed laws in 2025 banning the use of food additives, mainly in school lunches, with some starting to take effect this year. Another trade group, Americans For Ingredient Transparency, backed by PepsiCo, Kraft Heinz, General Mills and others, is pushing for the federal government to set a national standard on ingredients, rather than have its members scramble to comply with laws that vary state by state. The International Association of Colour Manufacturers says the European Union approves the use of some naturally derived colours more quickly than the US by classifying them as a type of food, rather than an additive, easing the shift away from artificial dyes.