M&M’s Cuts Two Colors from Packaging Collections in 2024
On June 18, the Wall Street Journal reported that Mars, the maker of M&M’s, will temporarily remove blue and brown candies from its lineup. The change follows the launch of the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) campaign, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which focuses on reducing artificial food dyes in popular snack foods. Mars had pledged in 2023 to offer versions of its products without synthetic dyes and to use natural colorants instead.
The company said it has replicated the red, orange, yellow and green M&M’s with scalable natural dyes, but has encountered difficulties recreating the vibrant cerulean blue introduced in 1995 and the brown shade, which contains significant amounts of blue dye. The new blue hue is derived from spirulina, a blue‑pigmented superfood, but texture and consistency issues have forced a temporary halt on those colors.
M&M’s versions made with natural dyes will be sold through Amazon, while the original, artificially colored products will continue to be available at conventional retailers. Mars indicated it expects to extend natural coloring to all six colors by 2028, though it has not confirmed the elimination of synthetic dyes.