Tyson Foods to Remove Synthetic Dyes by End of Month

The makers of Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwiches and Hillshire Farm meats will remove artificial dyes after Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has pushed to remove the dyes from America’s food supply.

“As a recognized leader in protein, none of the products Tyson Foods offers through our school nutrition programs include petroleum-based synthetic dyes as ingredients,” Donnie King, president and CEO of Tyson Foods, said in an earnings call on Monday.

King noted that most of the company’s products, including its chicken nuggets, “do not contain any of these types of dyes, and we have been proactively reformulating those few products that do.”

“We expect that our work to eliminate the use of petroleum-based synthetic dyes in production will be completed by the end of May,” the CEO continued.

PepsiCo said that its snack products such as Lay’s and Tostitos will “be out of artificial colors by the end of this year.”

In a statement about the need to remove petroleum-based synthetic dyes from America’s food supply Kennedy said:

For too long, some food producers have been feeding Americans petroleum-based chemicals without their knowledge or consent. 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. And we’re doing it by working with industry to get these toxic dyes out of the foods our families eat every day.

According to an HHS press release, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will take six specific actions:

1. Establish a national standard and timeline for the food industry to transition from petrochemical-based dyes to natural alternatives.
2. Initiate the process to revoke authorization for two synthetic food colorings—Citrus Red No. 2 and Orange B—within the coming months.
3. Work with industry to eliminate six remaining synthetic dyes—FD&C Green No. 3, FD&C Red No. 40, FD&C Yellow No. 5, FD&C Yellow No. 6, FD&C Blue No. 1, and FD&C Blue No. 2—from the food supply by the end of next year.
4. Authorize four new natural color additives in the coming weeks, while also accelerating the review and approval of others.
5. Partner with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to conduct comprehensive research on how food additives impact children’s health and development.
6. Request food companies to remove FD&C Red No. 3 sooner than the 2027-2028 deadline previously required.

“Today, the FDA is asking food companies to substitute petrochemical dyes with natural ingredients for American children as they already do in Europe and Canada,” FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, MD, MPH, said in a statement.

The move has received bipartisan applause from Sens. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and Cory Booker (D-NJ).