Jun 20, 2026
M&M’s will never be a health food, but candy manufacturer Mars is trying to make them seem “healthier” — at least to the Trump administration — with a recent ingredient shake-up.
Starting in August, you could buy bags of these classic candies without artificial dyes online. Just don’t be surprised when you can’t find all six colors. Mass-producing blue and brown M&M’s without artificial food colorings like Blue 1 was too complex and costly for the team at Mars, so they nixed them in their latest all-natural line.
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President of Mars’s North American snacking division, Anton Vincent, told The Wall Street Journal that introducing and implementing these changes has been “a daunting situation” when “you’re messing with an 85-year-old icon.” Even though these dye-less M&M’s won’t have all the familiar colors, leaders at Mars ultimately decided it was more important to release them ASAP.
As for red, orange, green, and yellow, Mars was able to source veggies like beets and spices like turmeric to replace the old artificial formulas. The whole project had a price tag in the millions.
However, Mars researchers continue to work out the kinks in their color strategy. If all goes according to plan, they hope to launch a fully dye-free version of M&M’s by 2028.
Mounting pressure with bans on artificial chemicals from states like West Virginia plus the Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement pushed Mars to put more money into researching new ingredients.
The science vs. the secretary
Last year, Mars officially announced its goal to release M&M’s — as well as other brands like Skittles, Starburst, and Extra gum — without “Food, Drug & Cosmetic (FD&C) colors” in 2026.
And it’s not just Mars that’s ditching dyes. As the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) aims to wipe out “petroleum-based food dyes (certified color additives) from the American food supply,” over 20 companies like Campbell’s and PepsiCo have commitments to remove these synthetic ingredients that are either in progress or completed.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has long been a critic of food dyes, even calling them “poisonous.” But chemically synthesized food colorings aren’t inherently more risky than plant- or animal-derived ones. One “natural” food dye introduced in France turned out to have a link to cancer.
And whatever their source, it’s important to remember that food colorings are consumed in minute amounts, and ideally only occasionally. The health concern with M&Ms is that they are high in sugar and saturated fat, but low in nutrients — not the tiny amount of food coloring they contain.
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As chemist Joseph A. Schwarcz, director of McGill University’s Office for Science and Society, wrote: “While there are valid reasons to consider banning some food dyes, their being “petroleum-based” or “artificial” are not among them. The potential toxicity of a substance is not determined by its ancestry! Whether a chemical is made by ‘Mother Nature’ in a plant or by a chemist in a lab has no bearing on its toxicity.”
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Mars hits a spirulina snag
One ingredient that threw a wrench in the works — almost literally — of Mars’s M&M’s project is a form of algae called spirulina. Although it has many purported health perks, Mars is only interested in its bluish-green tint and its favorability with consumers. The Wall Street Journal reported that testers couldn’t tell spirulina-sprayed green M&Ms from the artificial ones.
However, they couldn’t replicate that success to make a brown or blue pigment with spirulina. Those colors required more of the ingredient than was practical.
Spirulina is tricky to handle. While artificial coloring dissolves seamlessly into the sugar syrup that coats the outside of M&Ms, Spirulina creates a goopy foam that is hard to fully clean out of machines.
The Wall Street Journal likened the residue from repeated spirulina sprayings to “dental plaque” that can cause serious disruptions and risk the formation of mold.
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Mars had to invest in over 300 state-of-the-art machines and cleaning tools that can withstand extremely hot water to efficiently use spirulina.
According to the company’s Senior Director of Ingredient Transformation, Claire Hewitt, trying to get a natural blue M&M just right has proven to be “the hardest thing I’ve had to do in my career.”
Are naturally derived ingredients good for sales?
Although government scrutiny around synthetic dyes has been the major driver for reforms like the new M&M’s, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a marketing angle.
In fact, recent sales data suggest there’s significant demand these brands could capture if they’re perceived as more “natural.”
In a recent survey of consumer preferences from marketing services company Acosta Group, 58% of respondents now read labels “all or most of the time” before putting something in their cart.
There’s also a growing awareness of artificial ingredients, with 50% of shoppers admitting they’re “worried” about these additives, and 58% saying they’re in favor of the government’s effort to ban synthetic dyes and certain sweeteners.
So, even though it’ll cost companies to change their formulas, they may stand to gain some revenue from naturally colored snacks.
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Eric Esposito is a freelance contributor on MoneyWise who loves making financial topics accessible and understandable to readers. In addition to MoneyWise, Eric’s work can be found in publications such as WallStreetZen and CoinDesk.
