Mars Is Spending Millions to Make M&M’s Without Synthetic Dyes. These Two Colors Didn’t Make the Cut.
Candy maker Mars is responding to pressure to remove synthetic dyes from its candy coating. It’s easier said than done.
When M&M’s rolls out a version of its candy made without artificial dyes this August, two popular colors will be missing from it: blue and brown. To be clear, classic M&M’s aren’t changing — all six colors remain in the dyed version. But Mars,, the candy’s maker, pledged to offer dye-free options after pressure from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and re-creating blue and brown with natural ingredients has proven nearly impossible, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Mars cracked red, orange, yellow and green using sources like beets and turmeric. Blue, however, was an unwieldy beast. The company tried spirulina, a blue-green algae you can find in your Whole Foods smoothie mix, but it costs a lot more and requires roughly seven times the amount to hit the right shade. Brown is also hard to replicate naturally, because it contains a surprising amount of blue. Who knew?
This isn’t the first time M&M’s have received outside pressure to change. A few years ago, it introduced a set of diverse spokescandies, got slammed as too woke and pulled them. Now it’s the colors themselves under the microscope.
When M&M’s rolls out a version of its candy made without artificial dyes this August, two popular colors will be missing from it: blue and brown. To be clear, classic M&M’s aren’t changing — all six colors remain in the dyed version. But Mars,, the candy’s maker, pledged to offer dye-free options after pressure from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and re-creating blue and brown with natural ingredients has proven nearly impossible, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Mars cracked red, orange, yellow and green using sources like beets and turmeric. Blue, however, was an unwieldy beast. The company tried spirulina, a blue-green algae you can find in your Whole Foods smoothie mix, but it costs a lot more and requires roughly seven times the amount to hit the right shade. Brown is also hard to replicate naturally, because it contains a surprising amount of blue. Who knew?
This isn’t the first time M&M’s have received outside pressure to change. A few years ago, it introduced a set of diverse spokescandies, got slammed as too woke and pulled them. Now it’s the colors themselves under the microscope.
