FDA bans Red No. 3, looks to put warning labels on packaged food

The situation: The US Food and Drug Administration is flexing its muscles in the waning days of the Biden administration.

• It banned the use of Red No. 3. The synthetic dye—which has been linked to cancer in animals—is used in thousands of foods, including MorningStar Farms veggie bacon strips, strawberry-flavored Ensure, and some versions of Peeps, per food advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest.
• It proposed a rule that would require manufacturers to put new labels on the front of most packaged foods. The new “nutrition info box” is far more prominent and user-friendly than current nutrition labels. In stark black and white, it states whether the product is high, medium, or low in salt, added sugar, and saturated fat.

These actions follow the FDA's recent update to the definition of “healthy” on food labels, which tightened limits on saturated fat, sugar, and salt in products making that claim. And last summer, the FDA issued voluntary guidelines encouraging food manufacturers to reduce sodium levels in processed and packaged goods.

What happens next? Food manufacturers have until January 15, 2027, to remove Red No. 3. Companies that produce ingested drugs, including dietary supplements, will have an extra year to comply.

If the nutrition info box rule is finalized, manufacturers would have four years to comply. Many food manufacturers would likely rework their recipes to avoid needing “high” salt, added sugar, and saturated fat labels so they can appeal to shoppers. Roughly four out of 5 consumers (79%) say they consider whether a food product is processed when shopping, and 74% say they try to limit or avoid sugar in their diet, per an International Food Information Council consumer survey.

Our take: The FDA has effectively shined a spotlight on how some processed foods have contributed to rising obesity rates and other diseases.

• Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, has also been an outspoken advocate about the need to reduce ultra-processed food consumption and pledged to push people to eat healthier.
• But it isn’t clear whether the incoming administration is interested in taking on industry groups, which have argued the labels won’t alter consumers’ eating habits.

That makes it fairly likely that the proposed version of the nutrition info box, which took three years of research to develop, won’t end up on packaged foods.

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