The candy industry is continuing to use synthetic food dyes, despite ongoing initiatives by federal health officials to phase them out.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration said in April that they were trying to stop the use of petroleum-based synthetic dyes in order to “Make America Healthy Again.”
“These poisonous compounds offer no nutritional benefit and pose real, measurable dangers to our children’s health and development,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said at the time.
“We’re restoring gold-standard science, applying common sense, and beginning to earn back the public’s trust. And we’re doing it by working with industry to get these toxic dyes out of the foods our families eat every day,” he said.
Mars, the makers of M&M’s, who recently phased out the whitener titanium dioxide for its Skittles candies, told the New York Times that its products are “safe to enjoy and meet the high standards and applicable regulations set by food safety authorities around the world.”
Mars has not yet responded to a request for comment from The Washington Times.
The National Confectioners Association, a candy industry trade group, said in an April release that “FDA and regulatory bodies around the world have deemed our products and ingredients safe … We follow and will continue to follow regulatory guidance from the authorities in this space, because consumer safety is our chief responsibility and priority.”
Other products, such as cereals, are also affected by the move against synthetic food dyes.
Kellogg, makers of Froot Loops cereal and a fellow holdout company, told the New York Times that it is working with health officials and wants to “collectively find solutions that meet consumers’ shifting needs and wants.”
Some other companies, including Kraft Heinz, have gone along with the HHS and FDA initiative. Kraft Heinz pledged last month to get artificial dyes out of its various products by 2027.
