Kellogg Is Removing Artificial Colors From Froot Loops Cereal
If you pour a bowl of Froot Loops this time next year, it should look exactly the same. It just won't be made the same way.
WK Kellogg Co. announced Thursday that it's eliminating artificial colors from its entire cereal portfolio by the end of 2026 — a full year ahead of its original schedule. That includes Froot Loops, Apple Jacks, and every other cereal in the company's lineup. The rainbow of red, orange, yellow, green, purple, and blue loops isn't going anywhere — it's just switching from petroleum-based synthetic dyes to colors derived from fruit and vegetable juices and other plant-based ingredients.
"More and more consumers are looking for foods made with simple, recognizable ingredients, and we are proud to meet those expectations, even sooner than planned," said Doug VanDeVelde, Kellogg's chief growth officer.
Production of the reformulated cereals starts later this year. Products should be hitting store shelves before December 31. The company is also removing the preservative BHT from the small amount of cereal packaging that still contains it — another change they're making ahead of schedule.
This Didn't Happen Voluntarily
The announcement sounds like a feel-good consumer story. The backstory is more complicated.
Kellogg actually made a commitment to remove artificial colors from its cereals nearly a decade ago — and didn't follow through. Protesters showed up outside the company's Battle Creek, Michigan headquarters in 2024 demanding action. In July 2025 the company recommitted publicly to the change. A month later, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that Kellogg had signed a legally binding agreement with his office to remove synthetic dyes from Froot Loops and its other cereals by the end of 2027 — the first time any food company had made a legally enforceable commitment on the issue rather than just a verbal promise.
Now Kellogg is saying it'll beat that deadline by a year. About 85% of Kellogg's cereal portfolio was already artificial color-free before this announcement — the remaining 15% was concentrated in the most colorful, kid-targeted products like Froot Loops and Apple Jacks.
Why Artificial Dyes Are Under Scrutiny
The push to remove synthetic food dyes — most of which are petroleum-derived — has accelerated significantly in the past two years. The FDA banned Red No. 3 from food products in January 2026 after research linked it to cancer in animals. Health advocates have long argued that synthetic dyes like Red 40, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6 may affect children's behavior, particularly in kids with ADHD — a claim the FDA has evaluated multiple times without reaching a definitive conclusion, though the European Union requires warning labels on products containing certain dyes.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made removing synthetic dyes from the food supply a centerpiece of his Make America Healthy Again agenda, creating significant regulatory and political pressure on food companies to act. The FDA announced plans in 2025 to phase out petroleum-based food dyes by the end of 2026 and encouraged manufacturers to voluntarily accelerate their timelines.
Kellogg Isn't Alone
The food industry has been moving in this direction broadly and quickly. Kraft Heinz announced it would remove artificial dyes from its products. PepsiCo said Gatorade and Cheetos are getting natural dye makeovers. Target announced it would remove all synthetic colors from its store brand cereal aisle by May 2026. General Mills has made similar commitments across its cereal portfolio.
The speed of the industry shift suggests companies read the room — between regulatory pressure, state attorney general investigations, and genuine consumer demand for cleaner ingredients, staying with petroleum-based dyes had become more trouble than it was worth.
Whether the reformulated Froot Loops will taste and look identical to the original is a question that cereal purists will answer the moment the new boxes hit shelves. Kellogg says yes. That's exactly what decades of consumer testing is supposed to guarantee — though the same was said about New Coke, so there's always some uncertainty when you change a beloved product's formula.
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