United States: Pressure to eliminate artificial colors from the US food system could begin at the laboratory workstation of Abby Tampow.
The scientist worked above small vials containing different shades of red dye on that April afternoon.
The goal was to duplicate the synthetic coloring scheme that had been in commercial raspberry vinaigrette bottles for many years through natural ingredient development.
Push for Natural Food Dyes
As Tampow stated, “With this red, it needs a little more orange,” while mixing a slurry of purplish black carrot juice with a bit of beta-carotene, an orange-red color made from algae.
Team member Abby Tampow works at Sensient Technologies Corp., which stands as one of the world’s leading color manufacturers and continues rushing to provide the needed changes in food coloring implementation to manufacturers of thousands of American food products like salad dressing.
Bugs and beet juice could play roles in the race to replace artificial dyes in food https://t.co/bzU1kZhIHf
— MySA (@mySA) April 28, 2025
“Most of our customers have decided that this is finally the time when they’re going to make that switch to a natural color,” as per Dave Gebhardt, Sensient’s senior technical director.
Artificial Colors to Be Banned by 2026
The US health officials made plans during the last week to pressure food companies into entirely removing petroleum-based artificial dyes by 2026.
The new federal effort emerged after multiple state-level bans and a January decision to prohibit Red 3, which exists in cakes and candies, as well as certain drugs because of cancer risks observed in laboratory animals.
Natural Dyes Struggle to Meet Demand
Social media influencers and average consumers joined forces to lead the public demand for food products without artificial colors. The transition to natural colors will most likely take a long period of time.
RFK Jr. just announced a major food reform.
— Ways2Well (@ways2wellX) April 22, 2025
As Health and Human Services Secretary, he’s pushing to phase out 8 petroleum-based food dyes over the next two years—dyes still found in snacks, cereals, yogurts, and candies, despite links to hyperactivity in kids and cancer in… pic.twitter.com/E4CZcSPakw
The FDA maintains a registry of less than 40 color additives where synthetic dyes constitute eight of the available choices.
According to Ohio State University food color expert Monica Giusti, making this switch from petroleum-based dyes to colors from vegetables and fruits, as well as flowers and insects, will prove difficult and expensive and will require extended time.
“Study after study has shown that if all companies were to remove synthetic colors from their formulations, the supply of the natural alternatives would not be enough,” as per Giusti.
“We are not really ready,” the expert mentioned.