Valhalla, NY (AP) – Pepsi has a new challenge: maintain the product Gatorade and Cheats Vibrant and colorful without Artificial dye What US consumers are increasingly refusing.
PepsiCoDoritos, Cap’n Crunch Creal, Funyuns and Mountain Dew were also announced in April. Accelerate planned shifts Use Natural colour The food and drink. According to the company, approximately 40% of US products contain synthetic dyes.
However, just as it took decades for artificial colors to penetrate PepsiCo’s products, removing them can be a multi-year process. The company said it is still waiting for the US Food and Drug Administration to find new ingredients, test consumer responses, and to approve a natural alternative. PepsiCo is not committed to meeting Trump administration’s goals Phasing off petroleum-based synthetic dyes By the end of 2026.
“We don’t intend to launch any products that consumers cannot enjoy,” said Chris Coleman, senior director of PepsiCo, food research and development in North America. “You need to make sure the product is correct.”
Coleman said it could take two or three years. Shifting products From artificial colors to natural colors. PepsiCo must do Identify natural ingredients It has a stable shelf life and does not change the flavor of the product. Then you need to ensure safe and proper supply availability. company Test prototypes using a panel of trained professionals and consumers to ensure that new formulas do not grasp the manufacturing process. You also need to design a new package.
Experimenting spices on colored cheats
Tostitos and Lay’s will be the first PepsiCo brands to make a shift. On the shelf of the store Later this year, it was dyed naturally, with the expected sale early next year. Most of the two-line chips, dips and salsa are already naturally colored, with a few exceptions.
For example, the reddish brown tint of Salsa Verde in Tostitos came from four synthetic colors: yellow 5, yellow 6, red 40, blue 1. Coleman said the company is switching to calob powder that gives it a similar colour.
At Fritrey Food Lab and Test Kitchen in Plano, Texas, PepsiCo experiments with ingredients like paprika and turmeric, mimicking the bright reds and oranges of products like this. Flamin ‘Hot Cheetossaid Coleman.
According to Damien Brown, Vice President of Research and Development for PepsiCo’s Beverages based in Valhalla, New York, the company sees purple sweet potatoes and various types of carrots in colored drinks such as Mountain Dew and Cherry 7UP.
Many consumers know products like Gatorade by their colours, so it’s not necessarily their name, so it’s important to get the hue right, Brown said.
“We eat with our eyes,” he said. “When you look at a plate of food, it’s the different types of colors that tell you what you want in general.”
Consumer demand goes from whispering to roaring
When the Pepsi Cola company was founded in 1902, the absence of artificial dyes was a point of pride. The company sells Pepsi as an “original pure food drink”; Rival Cora It used lead, arsenic and other toxins as food colorants before the US ban in 1906.
However, synthetic dyes ultimately beat the food company. They were lively, more consistent than natural colours and cheaper. It has also been rigorously tested by the FDA.
Still, PepsiCo said it began seeing a small segment of shoppers seeking products that lack artificial colors or taste over 20 years ago. In 2002, they launched a simple line of chips that offer natural versions of products such as Doritos. In 2016, dye-free organic Gatorade was announced.
“We are looking for a small signal that will become popular in the future,” says Amanda Gzeda, senior director of PepsiCo’s global sense and consumer experience, about the company’s meticulous attention to consumer preferences.
Grzeda, a whisper PepsiCo detected in the early 2000s, was fueled to social media, Increased consumer interest With ingredients. More than half of consumers said PepsiCo was speaking in a recent internal study.
Synthetic and natural colours are in the hands of FDA
It is found in some states, including West Virginia and Arizona Artificial dyes prohibited in school lunches. But Brown said he was thinking. Consumers are driving Promoting overhaul of processed foods.
“Consumers are definitely leading, and I think all we need to do is catch up with regulators and be able to approve new natural ingredients to meet their demand,” he said.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says it is promoting approval of natural additives after urging businesses to stop using synthetic dyes. May, FDA Approved 3 new natural color additivescontains blue color derived from algae. In July, the agency approved Garnia Blue, which is derived from the flowering evergreen tree.
The FDA banned one petroleum-based dye, Red 3because in January it was shown to cause cancer in experimental rats. And in September, the agency I proposed banning oranges ba synthetic color that has not been used in decades.
Six synthetic dyes remain FDA approved and are widely used despite various studies showing that they can cause neurological problems in some children. For example, the Red 40 is used on 25,965 food and drink shelves, according to market research firm NIQ.
But even if decades of research show that synthetic colors are safe, PepsiCo must weigh public perceptions, Guzeda said.
“We could blindly pursue science, but perhaps we’ll be at odds with what consumers believe and perceive in the world,” she said.
Passed the taste and texture test
PepsiCo also needs to balance the needs of consumers who don’t want their favorite snacks and drinks to change or become more expensive due to the cost of natural dyes. NIQ data shows that unit sales for products advertised as without artificial colors have dropped sharply in 2023 as prices rose.
Susan Mazur Stommen, owner of a small business in Hinton, West Virginia, recently picked up a simple brand of cheatspuffs at a convenience store. She says she discovered that the texture was very different from the regular cheats puffs, and their pale colors didn’t stoke them.
Mazur-Stommen said she agrees to a move away from oil-based dyes, but that’s not a significant issue for her.
“What I’m looking for is the original formulation,” she said.
Ultimately, PepsiCo doesn’t want customers to choose natural colors Familiar flavors And texture, Gzeda said.
“It requires deep science, materials and magic there,” she said.
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Durbin was reported from Detroit.
