Color Additives Bans Advancing in West Virginia, Florida, Virginia

With the new year well underway, new state legislators in place and Robert F. Kennedy’s stance on the subject, a number of states are resurrecting or writing laws to ban a handful of synthetic food colorants and other questionable ingredients.

West Virginia’s House Bill No. 2354 overwhelmingly passed both houses in the state legislature on March 14 and awaits the governor’s signature. It would prohibit the sale of any food product in the state that contains Red 3 or 40, Yellow 5 or 6, Blue 1 or 2 or Green No. 3, along with butylated hydroxyanisole and propylparaben.

The same color additives were banned by California’s legislature from schools starting Dec. 31, 2027. An California law passed a year earlier prohibits potassium bromate, propylparaben, brominated vegetable oil and Red 3 from all foods in the state after Jan. 1, 2027.

Red 3 has already been earmarked for a national ban by the FDA, effective Jan. 15, 2027, and the agency outlawed brominated vegetable oil effective this Aug. 2.

The West Virginia law would ban the listed colors in school nutrition programs effective this Aug. 1, with some limited exemptions. Then, on Jan. 1, 2028, the ban extends to all foods sold statewide.

A new bill filed in Florida, SB 560, seeks to ban nine ingredients, not just colorants, from restaurants in that state. It specifies Red 3, Blue 1 and Yellow 5, as well as brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propylparaben, benzidine, butylated hydroxyanisole and butylated hydroxytoluene.

If passed and signed by the governor, the bill would take effect on Jan. 1, 2028.

Both houses of the Virginia legislature on March 7 passed a bill that would ban the six color additives from state schools effective July 1, 2027.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., new secretary of Health and Human Services, the FDA’s parent, told six food industry leaders in a closed-door meeting on March 10 that he wants them to remove synthetic color additives from their products by the end of his time in office, according to a Consumer Brands Assn. memo obtained by ABC News and Bloomberg.

"The Secretary made clear his intention to take action unless the industry is willing to be proactive with solutions," Melissa Hockstad, president/CEO of Consumer Brands, wrote in the memo.