Mars to Launch Artificial-Color-Free M&M's Using Natural Ingredients
Mars will begin selling M&M's without synthetic dyes, using beet, turmeric and spirulina to provide natural colors, though blue remains a production challenge.
Mars announced that its new line of M&M's will be free of artificial colors, relying on natural sources such as beets and turmeric for red, orange and yellow hues, and spirulina, a blue-green algae, for green. The company, which manufactures about 600 million pieces daily in the United States, has faced a multi-million-dollar effort to replace synthetic dyes after regulators began restricting substances like Citrus Red No. 2 and Orange B.
"Blue has become what one dye executive calls the 'holy grail,'" a spokesperson noted, explaining that achieving a stable blue shade with spirulina requires a higher concentration than for green, which can clog spray nozzles and disrupt production. The same natural blue pigment is also used in small amounts to create the brown color of traditional M&M's.