“Last summer, we committed to accelerating the removal of FD&C colors from our U.S. food and beverage portfolio,” Marty Thompson, CEO of Nestlé USA, said in a blog-like post on the company’s website this month. “Today, I’m proud to share that we have fully eliminated them.”

On June 25 of last year, Nestle USA became the third major food company to commit with a deadline to removing FD&C colors, promising they’d be out of products “by mid-2026.” Last year’s announcement didn’t mention the colors or products they were in by name, but it did note more than 90% of Nestlé USA's then-current portfolio did not include synthetic colors.

A recent scan of products on Amazon.com showed Nesquik Banana Strawberry Flavored Lowfat Milk was using Red 3 and Nesquik Strawberry Flavored Syrup still had Red 40.

“Our Nesquik team, for example, moved quickly to evolve our recipes for strawberry-flavored offerings using colors from natural sources,” Thompson continued. “And in just five months, our foodservice teams worked to thoughtfully transition more than 20 Nestlé Vitality beverage offerings to natural color sources — without compromising quality or taste.”

Last year’s Nestle promise followed by two months an April 22, 2025 press conference in which Health & Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy asked food & beverage processors to remove petroleum-based colorants Blue 1 & 2, Green 3, Red 3 & 40 and Yellow 5 & 6 by the end of 2026.

“Over the past decade, [Nestle] has been removing synthetic colors from its products and working to identify alternative solutions in recipes where they are still used,” Nestle said at the time. “The work is scheduled to be completed within the next 12 months.”

“Behind this milestone is thoughtful work to make these changes the right way,” Thompson continued this June. “In the products where these ingredients were previously used, we removed or replaced them with alternatives — while maintaining the quality, taste and experience consumers expect. Food safety and quality remained central throughout that work, and our products continue to meet the highest standards.”

He thanked Nestle teams for their effort.

Thompson also noted “less than 1% of our portfolio today contains high-fructose corn syrup, and we do not use aspartame across our U.S. portfolio. We’ve also been expanding low- and zero-sugar product options.”