Nestlé USA has removed all certified artificial colors from its food and beverage portfolio, achieving its goal of fully eliminating them from its portfolio by the middle of this year.
The Nesquik and DiGiorno maker announced in June 2025 that more than 90% of its U.S. portfolio already was free from synthetic dyes. The food and beverage giant vowed to remove the remaining artificial colors or to reformulate existing recipes with alternative solutions while keeping the quality, taste and experience people expect.
“This work didn’t happen overnight,” Marty Thompson, CEO of Nestlé USA, wrote in a blog post. “In fact, it builds on years of progress and the ongoing commitment of teams across our business to evolve recipes while protecting what people know and love.”
Thompson, who took over the top post at Nestlé USA in January 2025, noted that the company’s Nesquik team quickly reformulated strawberry-flavored offerings using colors from natural sources. And in just five months, the company’s foodservice employees transitioned more than 20 Nestlé Vitality beverage offerings to natural color sources without compromising quality or taste.
Reformulated products are already arriving on shelves, Nestlé USA said.
Nestlé’s pledge to remove artificial dyes was part of a broader move from major food companies to remove synthetic colors from their portfolios following pressure from the White House and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
General Mills, Kraft Heinz and The Campbell’s Company were among the other companies that vowed to remove artificial dyes. Grocers such as Target also have begun to limit sales of cereals with synthetic colors.
Nestlé USA said eliminating the dyes is part of the company's larger work to ensure products reflect shifting consumers' needs and preferences. During the last decade, it has simplified recipes, enhanced ingredient transparency and expanded choice across its brands to reflect ever-evolving tastes, nutritional needs, convenience and price points.
The food and beverage company is cutting sugar when possible, using high-fructose corn syrup in less than 1% of its products and increasing the sale of clean-label products such as its Natural Bliss dairy creamers, Thompson said. Nestlé USA is also launching products tailored to today’s trends, including Vital Pursuit for people taking GLP-1 medications.
“We know people expect more from the products they bring into their homes — great taste, trusted quality, ingredients they feel good about and value that fits their lives,” Thompson said. “Earning that trust isn’t a one-time action. It means continuing to listen, evolve and be clear about where we’re making progress. It also means anticipating where consumer expectations are headed — and making changes today to meet them. That’s what this work is about.”
