Consumers are buying more food with natural colors

Consumers are buying more food and beverages colored with natural dyes, but a green light from shoppers doesn’t mean brands and retailers won’t face a few red flags.

In 2025, products with artificial dyes made up 4% of food and beverage products and 7% of dollar sales (and a whopping 42.2% of candy sales), according to a recent report from the National Confectioners Association (NCA) and RTI International.

Food and beverage products advertising “natural colors” grew dollar sales by 24.4% last year, with notable growth across categories like prepared food (52.5%), diet and nutrition (40.6%), baking, seasoning, and toppings (27.1%), and dairy (21.7%). In contrast, products marketing “artificial colors” in their ingredients grew less than 0.1%.

Amid pressure from the FDA and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., many retailers and CPG giants have been making strides to eliminate synthetic food dyes from their products over the past year. In May, Target began only selling cereals made without synthetic dyes, while Walmart is removing the colorants across its private labels by January 2027. Last year, PepsiCo released Simply NKD Cheetos and Doritos, which notched $3 million in sales in its first month, per Circana data cited in the report. Similar pledges and innovations from Hershey, Kraft Heinz, and many others are still in the works.

But many roadblocks remain.

The shift is a “supply chain transformation,” NCA President and CEO John Downs said in a statement. The rapid increase in demand for dyes could lead to a more than 1,000% price increase in the colorants, per the report, and consumers will likely see higher prices.

The Wall Street Journal reported in June that Mars has spent millions to develop M&Ms without artificial dyes, and will launch its natural dye products without blue or brown M&Ms.

The report notes products with natural colors can be more sensitive to temperature and lighting, which can fade or shift colors, so retailers may need to keep products on shelf for less time, with more inventory kept in dark back rooms, or establish warmer lighting in certain areas.

In June, the FDA identified the end of 2027 as the goal for industry-wide artificial dye elimination.