Mars, the maker of M&M’s, announced that beginning this August it will launch a new version of the product in the United States without artificial food dyes. The move, which comes amid the “Make America Healthy Again” trend promoting reduced use of artificial ingredients in food, will coincide with the brand’s 85th anniversary.
But the shift to natural ingredients comes at a cost. As part of the change, the company is expected to remove two colors long identified with the candy from its packages: blue and brown. According to the company, it was not possible to recreate those shades using natural ingredients at a cost that would allow large-scale commercial production. “It was a challenging and daunting situation,” said Anton Vincent, president of Mars Wrigley North America and global ice cream. “You’re messing with an 85-year-old icon.”
The company explained that blue, which was added to the brand in 1995 after a public voting campaign, proved especially difficult to reproduce. Researchers managed to recreate other colors using natural ingredients, but blue relied heavily on spirulina, a pigment derived from algae that requires significantly larger quantities to achieve the same color intensity.
The use of spirulina also created difficulties in producing the brown candies. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve had to do in my career,” said Claire Hewitt, a senior Mars executive. The move joins a broader trend in the global food industry, where major manufacturers are seeking to reduce the use of artificial additives and replace them with natural ingredients amid growing consumer and regulatory pressure.