If the blue or brown M&Ms were your favorite… start saying your goodbyes. As of August, new all-natural M&M packs will include only four of their iconic colors: red, green, yellow, and orange. In addition to two lost colors, Mars will stop using artificial dyes in M&Ms altogether.
Mars isn’t the first company to make the switch. With a controversial new Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) initiative, artificial dyes have begun disappearing from food products. From Nestle and Hershey in candy to Simply NKD (Doritos/Cheetos without the red 40), this health-conscious push is changing the snacking game.
But why brown and blue, specifically? According to a Wall Street Journal interview with the company, red, orange, yellow, and green were easy to recreate naturally. From beets to turmeric, there is no shortage of those colors in the natural world. However, brown and blue created problems. Mars said the substitute they were considering, a teal-ish algae called spirulina, is too expensive to buy en masse. For brown, the company has always mixed blue, red, and yellow dyes, which also becomes expensive to do.
This comes only 30 years after the public voted to replace the tan M&M (don’t ask me what Mars was thinking with that one) with blue. Candy-lovers were able to choose between blue, pink, and purple, and with a 54% vote, blue won.
The company hasn’t given up entirely. They are working to develop purple, brown, and blue dyes that work with their budget. The fortunate part is every M&M tastes the same (I don’t want to hear anybody negate that, it’s true), so despite a slightly less colorful variety, the signature chocolatey flavor isn’t going anywhere.
Artificial dye-free packs will begin rolling out in August. Until the company finds a good dye alternative for brown and blue, they will not appear in the new packages.