Junk food will become healthier after consumer’s preference for natural ingredients convinced the giant Nestle to remove artificial flavors and colors from its more-than 250 chocolate products sold in the United States. The changes will be made by the end of the year. The American unit of the Switzerland based company announced that it has been working for more than a year on taking out food coloring such as Red 40 and Yellow 5, and flavorings like vanillin from its candy bars. This move will make Nestle the first major candy manufacturer in the U.S. to remove such artificial ingredients, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The health revolution in the candy industry comes after demand for food made with simpler ingredients increased in the last years. Recently, a study by market research firm Nielsen showed that more than 60% of Americans say that the absence of artificial colors or flavors is important in their decisions.
Natural vanilla flavor will replace vanillin in Crunch bars, while annatto extracted from the seeds of achiote trees will replace the colorant in Butterfinger bars. And even though the changes are expensive, Nestle said it won’t raise the prices.
Nestle is not the only candy company that is moving towards healthier products and even its far larger rivals – Hershey and Mars – are making small steps in this direction. Hershey announced in December that will use sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup in its candy and Mars filed a patent for a natural blue coloring for the M&M’s. Also, Mondelez International which makes Oreo cookies and Cadbury chocolate, decided reduce the saturated fat and sodium in its snacks by 10% by 2020, with no promise regarding artificial ingredients though.
Food coloring came under scrutiny in recent years as consumer advocacy groups argue that they have side effects on health. Red 40, one of the most used in sodas, candies and sausages could cause allergy-like reactions of hyperactivity in children, but this finding didn’t convince the the Food and Drug Administration to ban it.