For decades, the colorful shells of M&Ms have been a staple of candy aisles and snack bowls. But starting in August 2026, fans of the iconic chocolate candies will notice something missing: two of the classic colors, blue and brown, are being temporarily retired from the all-natural lineup. The move comes as Mars, the parent company behind M&Ms, responds to mounting government pressure and shifting consumer preferences by removing artificial dyes from its products—a change that’s proven to be both expensive and technically challenging.
According to The Daily Beast and The Wall Street Journal, Mars will launch a new brand of M&Ms this August, featuring only naturally derived colors. While red, orange, yellow, and green candies will still be present, blue and brown didn’t make the cut. The reason? Mars’s researchers, engineers, and food scientists couldn’t find a natural dye that reliably and efficiently replicated those colors at scale. The company poured millions of dollars and hired over a hundred employees to tackle the problem, but the technical hurdles proved too great—at least for now.
The push to eliminate artificial food dyes gained momentum after U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made it a central plank of his “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) initiative. Kennedy Jr. has been an outspoken critic of synthetic food dyes, calling them “poisonous” and linking them to behavioral issues in children and even cancer risks. In a 2025 press conference, he declared, “When we look at these nine specific food dyes, the science shows a clear, undeniable link to behavioral disruptions in our kids and long-term cancer risks. We are systematically clearing them out.”
This campaign didn’t just target Mars. As MoneyWise and Fox News report, more than 20 major food companies—including Campbell’s and PepsiCo—have pledged to remove synthetic dyes from their products, either in progress or already completed. Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has stepped up its own regulatory efforts, banning several petroleum-based food dyes and revoking approval for chemicals like brominated vegetable oil (BVO) and Red Dye No. 3, citing animal studies that linked them to cancer.
For Mars, the challenge came down to chemistry and logistics. The company experimented with a variety of natural colorants. Red, orange, green, and yellow M&Ms were successfully recreated using plant-based ingredients like beets and turmeric—ingredients that are relatively inexpensive and widely available. But blue and brown were another story. Mars’s scientists turned to spirulina, a blue-green algae, as a potential substitute for the artificial Blue 1 dye. Spirulina offered the right hue in theory, but in practice, it proved to be a manufacturing headache.
As The New York Post and Fox News detail, spirulina is far more expensive than other natural colorants—costing over $100 per pound for the concentrated form suitable for food dyes, compared to about $10 per pound for turmeric. More importantly, spirulina’s viscous, foamy texture caused repeated clogs in factory spray nozzles and left stubborn residue in the machinery, raising both efficiency and health concerns. The residue was likened to “dental plaque” that could harbor mold if not cleaned out properly. To cope, Mars invested in more than 300 state-of-the-art machines and specialized cleaning tools capable of withstanding extremely hot water, but even that wasn’t enough to make blue and brown candies viable for mass production.
“Trying to get a natural blue M&M just right has proven to be the hardest thing I’ve had to do in my career,” said Claire Hewitt, Senior Director of Ingredient Transformation at Mars, in comments to The Wall Street Journal. Anton Vincent, president of Mars’s North American snacking division, echoed the sentiment, describing the effort as “a daunting situation” and adding, “you’re messing with an 85-year-old icon.”
The company even considered rolling out a simplified three-color mix—red, orange, and yellow—but ultimately decided the look was too drab, with one executive quipping that “the sunset vibes were too strong.” Mars also experimented with introducing new colors like pink and purple, but these didn’t fit the traditional M&Ms palette and were ultimately dropped.
Despite the setbacks, Mars is not giving up on restoring the full spectrum of colors. The company has set a goal to bring back blue and brown M&Ms in all-natural form by 2028. In the meantime, the new all-natural M&Ms will be sold exclusively through Amazon, with hopes that further research and development will yield a breakthrough in natural dye technology.
The move toward natural ingredients isn’t just about regulatory compliance—it’s increasingly a response to consumer demand. A recent survey by the Acosta Group found that 58% of shoppers now read ingredient labels “all or most of the time,” and half say they’re “worried” about artificial additives. Moreover, 58% of respondents expressed support for government efforts to ban synthetic dyes and certain sweeteners. These numbers suggest that Mars’s gamble on cleaner labels could pay off in the form of increased sales, even if the change comes at a steep initial cost.
Still, not everyone is convinced that the switch to natural dyes is a meaningful health improvement. As chemist Joseph A. Schwarcz of McGill University points out, “While there are valid reasons to consider banning some food dyes, their being ‘petroleum-based’ or ‘artificial’ are not among them. The potential toxicity of a substance is not determined by its ancestry! Whether a chemical is made by ‘Mother Nature’ in a plant or by a chemist in a lab has no bearing on its toxicity.” Schwarcz and others argue that the health risks from food colorings—natural or artificial—are minimal compared to the sugar and saturated fat content of the candies themselves.
Mars’s journey to reformulate M&Ms also highlights the broader tensions between science, public perception, and government policy. The company first announced plans to remove artificial dyes back in 2016, only to reverse course after finding that customers didn’t seem to care. This time, with regulatory pressure and consumer sentiment aligned, Mars is betting that its investment in natural ingredients will both satisfy government mandates and win over a new generation of health-conscious shoppers.
As the candy industry adapts to a world increasingly wary of artificial additives, Mars’s colorful dilemma shows just how complicated—and costly—it can be to change a beloved product for the better. For now, M&Ms fans will have to make do without their blue and brown favorites, but with innovation and persistence, the classic rainbow may yet return.