I just LOVE that little, 'kick in the pants' after the chocolate has melted in your mouth...
Posted on 06/22/2026 4:43:18 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Whether you relate more to the allure of the green M&M or the charisma of the red one, you can rest easy in the fact that both of those colors are here to stay—which sadly can’t be said for all of the M&M’s colors you’ve come to know and love. That’s right, the popular chocolate candy brand is doing away with two of its iconic colors, but not without good reason.
Mars, the maker of M&M’s, is phasing out synthetic food dyes, and M&M’s is slated to go au naturel come August. Currently, the small candy-coated chocolates come in seven bright colors—red, yellow, green, blue, orange, brown, and sometimes purple. As it turns out, replicating all of these colors in the same shades using natural ingredients was harder than anticipated.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Mars had little trouble recreating the red, orange, yellow, and green M&M colors using ingredients such as turmeric and beets. However, issues arose when trying to emulate blue and brown. A blue-green alga called spirulina is a common additive used to turn food and drinks blue—but in this case, the juice just wasn’t worth the squeeze, so to speak. The ingredient is much pricier than synthetic dye and requires seven times as much to match the right shade of blue.
Similarly, brown was difficult to recreate as it uses the color blue, as well. With these obstacles in mind, Mars decided to nix the two colors altogether and is instead moving forward with natural M&M’s in just red, green, yellow, and orange. That pack of M&M’s will never be the same. RIP li’l buddies.
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I don’t need brown m&ms and won’t miss them at all.
[Ms. Brown M&M does have nice legs though...]
Aldis has some chili dark chocolate “bars” that taste good to me.
Phasing out brown? Paging Reverend Al…
Couldn’t they have put blue and brown in the first paragraph?
I have a bag of red, white and blue M&M mix. They won’t be making those anymore?
Who cares I don’t eat that crap , did eat them way back when I had to eat Rations ,LOL
I still miss the light brown or tan ones from the ‘50s and ‘60s. I’m glad they’re keeping orange, love that one too.
I’m selling all of my Beanie Babies and investing that money into brown and blue M&Ms....
“...did eat them way back when I had to eat Rations, LOL”
It was A Good Day if you got Crackers and Jam or Crackers and Peanut Butter or even the, ‘wax-infused with chocolate’ bars!
When stationed in Germany they had the shelf-stable chocolate milk. I plunked that down as an ante on the Poker Table a time or two, LOL!
It was GOLDEN! :)
Re: R W & B M&Ms.
With our 250th Birthday coming up next month, that was VERY poor market timing on Mars’ part!
When I indulge, I always save the red ones for last. They’re my favorite...even IF THEY ALL TASTE THE SAME. ;)
Marketing 101: You’re selling the SIZZLE, Baby...NOT the STEAK!
“Couldn’t they have put blue and brown in the first paragraph?”
Well, Yeah. But this is Free Republic. We don’t READ the articles, we just comment. ;)
I just LOVE that little, 'kick in the pants' after the chocolate has melted in your mouth...
I’m going to have to try this. It looks good.
LOL! Beanie Babies! Have TWO on my desk as I type:
‘Pugsly’ the Pug and ‘Tracker’ the Basset Hound.
I also have a Zuhz Zuhz pet. Remember them?
I wonder where my Pet Rock is these days? LOL!
When I was kid in the late ‘50s, during Summer months my Mom would take my brother and I to the local plunge to go swimming where there was a candy machine that sat alongside the pool in the hot Sun all day. After receiving a nickel from my Mom, I would drop it into the coin slot and get a bag of M&Ms. They were warm and somewhat melted and I loved them that way. To this day, I sometimes stick M&Ms in the microwave for about 30 seconds to warm them up before eating them.
“It’s complete BS that they cannot make blue or brown they do it for the EU every day. “
You misunderstand. Those dyes are synthetic.
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