M&M’s are getting a makeover: the first ones without colourings will be available in the US in August

Following Robert Kennedy Jr’s campaign against artificial colourings in food, M&M’s has decided to invest millions of dollars and will launch the first all-natural version of its chocolates in August. This is according to the Wall Street Journal.

However, the operation is proving to be much more complex and costly than anticipated.

Researchers at Mars have managed to produce convincing replicas of the red, orange and yellow variants using natural ingredients such as beetroot and turmeric, but not the blue and brown ones, which will therefore not be included in the packets. To recreate the blue colour, introduced in 1995, spirulina was chosen; this is a rare and expensive ingredient for a production run of around 600 million M&M’s a day.