In a significant victory for the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, food giant Kraft Heinz vowed that it would remove all artificial colors from its products in the coming years.
On Tuesday, Kraft Heinz announced in a statement that it will remove artificial food, drug, and cosmetic colors from products in the United States before the end of 2027.
Kraft Heinz also declared that ‘it will not launch any new products in the US with Food, Drug & Cosmetic (FD&C) colors, effective immediately.’
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration notes that there are seven certified synthetically produced color additives approved for use in foods, drugs, and cosmetics.
“The FDA’s regulations require evidence that a color additive is safe at its intended level of use before it may be added to foods,” according to the FDA.
In order to be an approved additive in foods, the artificial coloring can be added only to certain types of foods and in limited quantities. Companies that use it must also adhere to FDA regulations on how the color additive is presented on the product’s packaging.
As Blaze News reported in January, the FDA announced a ban on the use of Red No. 3 dye because of evidence that laboratory rats exposed to high levels of Red No. 3 developed cancer.
Kraft Heinz announced a three-pronged strategy for removing artificial colors from its existing products, including “removing colors where it is not critical to the consumer experience,” “replacing FD&C colors with natural colors,” or “reinventing new colors and shades where matching natural replacements are not available.”
Kraft Heinz pointed out that nearly 90% of its U.S. products are free of FD&C colors.
In addition to removing artificial dyes from its existing products, Kraft Heinz also declared that “it will not launch any new products in the U.S. with Food, Drug & Cosmetic (FD&C) colors, effective immediately.”
Pedro Navio — the North America president of Kraft Heinz — stated, “As a food company with a 150+ year heritage, we are continuously evolving our recipes, products, and portfolio to deliver superiority to consumers and customers. The vast majority of our products use natural or no colors, and we’ve been on a journey to reduce our use of FD&C colors across the remainder of our portfolio.”
Navio stressed that the company eliminated artificial colors, preservatives, and flavors from its extremely popular mac and cheese in 2016.
The Kraft Heinz Company has several notable brands under its umbrella, including Oscar Mayer, Ore-Ida, Capri Sun, Lunchables, Jell-O, and Kool-Aid.
Kraft Heinz is the “third-largest food and beverage company in North America and the fifth-largest food and beverage company in the world, with eight $1 billion+ brands,” according to the food behemoth.
Kraft Heinz is removing all artificial colors from its brands after the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. placed pressure on food manufacturers to eliminate synthetic additives from their food products by the end of President Donald Trump’s term.
In March, Kennedy urged the removal of artificial dyes from food products in a meeting with top food executives from massive companies such as Kraft Heinz, PepsiCo, General Mills, Tyson Foods, and W.K. Kellogg.
As part of his MAHA agenda, Kennedy is pushing food manufacturers to remove potentially dangerous petroleum-based synthetic dyes from food.
“For too long, some food producers have been feeding Americans petroleum-based chemicals without their knowledge or consent,” Kennedy proclaimed in April. “These poisonous compounds offer no nutritional benefit and pose real, measurable dangers to our children’s health and development. That era is coming to an end.”
“We’re restoring gold-standard science, applying common sense, and beginning to earn back the public’s trust,” President Trump’s HHS secretary declared. “And we’re doing it by working with industry to get these toxic dyes out of the foods our families eat every day.”
In addition to removing artificial dyes from the nation’s food supply, the FDA is partnering with the National Institutes of Health to “conduct comprehensive research on how food additives impact children’s health and development.”
Blaze News reached out to the HHS and FDA for a comment on Kraft Heinz eliminating artificial food coloring but did not receive an immediate response.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
The post MAHA scores major victory as Kraft Heinz vows to stop using artificial food dyes appeared first on TheBlaze.