Companies will now have flexibility to claim products contain ‘no artificial colors’ when foods do not contain petroleum-based colors.
Archived version: https://archive.is/newest/https://www.foodpolitics.com/2026/02/fda-says-food-companies-can-claim-no-artificial-colors-if-they-use-natural-dyes/
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So if the dyes aren’t artificial, you can claim “no artificial colours”. This sounds like it makes sense? 👍
In the past, companies were generally only able to make such claims when their products had no added color whatsoever — whether derived from natural sources or otherwise.
Here in the UK, I’m pretty sure “No added colours” and “No artificial colours” are two different claims.
Not sure if the wording makes 100% sense. For example, that could be bypassed by simply making the same chemical without using petroleum-based products. The fundamental problem is that consumers expect information about how likely a product is to harm them, and the different measures of “artificilialness” are just a marketing device that doesn’t fulfill that role.
So if the dyes aren’t artificial, you can claim “no artificial colours”. This sounds like it makes sense?
Yeah, otherwise you’d have couldn’t sell anything with that label. Carrots have natural dyes in them, after all.




