Walmart plans to remove artificial colors and other food additives from store brands by 2027

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NEW YORK (AP) — Walmart said Wednesday that it plans to remove synthetic food dyes and 30 other ingredients, including some preservatives, artificial sweeteners and fat substitutes, from its store brands sold in the United States by January 2027.

The move announced by the the nation’s largest retailer amounts to an acknowledgment that American consumers and the U.S. government under President Donald Trump are paying attention to what goes into packaged foods. Walmart said its goal would affect about 1,000 products, including salty snacks, baked goods, power drinks, salad dressings and frosting.

Several of the ingredients on Walmart’s removal list, however, already are banned, not widely used or have not been used in the U.S. food supply for decades. Others were included despite no known problems or have been targeted by the Trump administration for review and possible elimination as an approved food additive, according to food safety experts.

Still, the action represents a “sweeping declaration and a considerable response to consumer demand and sentiment” for fewer additives in food, said Brian Ronholm, director of food policy for the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports.

“This is a good and well-thought-out list and represents a very positive step, especially considering the reach their private label brands have in U.S. households,” Ronholm said in a statement.

Walmart’s Great Value brand most affected

Walmart said the 14-month reformulation plan primarily would involve its largest private-label food brand, Great Value. Customers also can expect changes in Walmart’s Marketside and Freshness Guaranteed lines of prepared foods, and to some extent in its premium label Bettergoods products, the company said.

In recent months, major food companies such as Kraft Heinz, Nestle and Conagra Brands have pledged to eliminate petroleum-based synthetic dyes in coming years. Walmart took its news a step further by identifying other kinds of food additives in its phase-out timeline.

The chemicals and compounds the discount retailer intends to eliminate encompasses the breadth of food manufacturing. For example, Walmart’s list includes potassium nitrate, potassium nitrite and potassium bisulfite, which are used as preservatives in processed meats, as well as the artificial sweeteners advantame and neotame.

Many of the items on Walmart’s list have raised concerns about potential health effects “for a long time,” said Thomas Galligan, a scientist who focuses on food additives for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group. Those include synthetic dyes, titanium dioxide, azodicarbonamide, propylparaben, potassium bromate and phthalates, a chemical used to make plastic flexible.

Health advocates have argued that phthalates in plastic wrap, plastic packaging and plastic bottles can end up in food and beverages. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has limited but not ended their use in items that come into contact with food.

Food scientists say some of Walmart’s choices surprising

But some of the 11 artificial food dyes detailed by Walmart were already banned, proposed to be banned or haven’t been used for years, including Red No. 4, Red No. 3 , Citrus Red No. 2 and Orange B. The retailer also listed simplesse, a fat substitute that was phased out of the U.S. food market in 2023, and synthetic trans fatty acids, or trans fats, which the FDA effectively phased out the same year by determining that partially hydrogenated oils no longer were recognized as safe.

Experts said some of Walmart’s choices were surprising. Ronholm said he was not aware of problems related to toulene, anisole or morpholine, three other additives Walmart plans to eliminate from its foods. Center for Science in the Public Interest President Peter Lurie questioned the inclusion of talc on the retailer’s list. Galligan said his agency considers advantame and neotame “to be safe.”

Overall, though, the initiative struck Galligan as a good commitment.

“However, as with any voluntary effort, it is very easy for Walmart to make bold promises, but it is a lot harder for them to follow through,” he said. “Many companies, including Walmart, have previously made and then broke promises similar to this, so until we see reformulated products on store shelves, this is all just talk.”

Walmart said the additives selected for banishment reflected the availability of “viable and scalable alternatives” for maintaining product quality, taste and affordable pricing.

In June, Walmart’s wholesale club division, Sam’s Club, said it would remove more than 40 ingredients, including artificial colors and the artificial sweetener aspartame, from its Member’s Mark products by the end of the year.

Reformulating food is ‘complicated’

Walmart shoppers also are likely to see reformulated food items in the coming months, the company said. Among them: Great Value cheese dips made with paprika and annatto, a food coloring and spice that’s derived from the seeds of the achiote tree, in place of Yellow No. 5 and Yellow No. 6, Walmart said.

In the future, a new version of Great Value Fruit Spins Cereal will not get its colors from Red No. 40, Yellow No. 6 and Blue No. 2, but from beta carotene, annatto, blue-green spirulina and juice concentrates, according to Walmart.

Scott Morris, Walmart’s senior vice president of private brands food, consumables, and manufacturing, told The Associated Press that 90% of Walmart’s private label foods don’t contain synthetic dyes. He said Wednesday’s news marks an acceleration of a process the company initiated in the last few years.

Customers have been asking Walmart to get rid of certain ingredients, but replacing them with more natural alternatives is complicated, Morris said. The performance of the substitutes can vary significantly depending on whether a product is shelf stable or needs to be refrigerated, he said. New versions need to be vigorously taste-tested with customers, he added.

“Every item’s a snowflake,” Morris said.

The main factor that prevented Walmart from overhauling its food shelves sooner was a limited availability of approved alternatives, but the market for those is increasing, he said.

“Now’s the right time to make our declaration and be more broad with our application of the natural ingredients,” Morris said.

The federal government is also giving artificial food dyes increased scrutiny.

Days before Trump returned to office, the FDA banned the dye called Red 3 from the nation’s food supply, nearly 35 years after it was barred from cosmetics because of potential cancer risk.

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Aleccia reported from Southern California.