Smile
A new Texas law requiring warning labels on foods and beverages like M&Ms, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and Fanta will take effect following Governor Greg Abbott’s signing of the legislation.
Governor Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 25 on Sunday night, which aims to eliminate ingredients like synthetic dyes from the U.S. food supply.
Food companies, which continue to assert the safety of their ingredients, now have until 2027 to remove over 40 substances—including artificial dyes and bleached flour—from products sold in Texas.
Kraft Heinz (NASDAQ:KHC) and General Mills (NYSE:GIS) recently announced plans to eliminate synthetic dyes from their U.S. products by the end of 2027. However, industry groups maintain that no formal agreement has been reached with the federal government.
As currently formulated, products such as Coca-Cola’s (NYSE:KO) Fanta, PepsiCo’s (NASDAQ:PEP) Cheetos Crunchy and Nacho Cheese Doritos, Mars Skittles and M&Ms, and Kellanova’s (NYSE:K) Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tarts would all require warning labels, Bloomberg reported.
Sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup and aspartame had been listed in the bill, but were removed after industry pushback, according to The Texas Tribune.
A coalition of industry groups and companies such as PepsiCo (PEP), Mondelez (MDLZ), and Walmart (WMT) had called on Texas lawmakers to scrap the new label requirement.