The food scientists at General Mills, Inc. have dedicated years of efforts to test hundreds of combinations of fruits, vegetables, and spices so that they can replace the artificial food coloring in Trix. Still, they couldn’t find matches for the neon-green or turquoise corn puffs in the multihued breakfast cereal.

The paradigm shift in consumers’ point of view

The lab at General Mills has eminent researchers who are responding to the new fad of rejecting artificial flavors, dyes, and preservatives by Americans. Consumers are now demanding food with natural ingredients.

This huge demand for natural ingredients has turned the food industry around completely. Companies are forced to change their years-old recipes and the process is not an easy walk. Consumer food companies are dedicated to finding acceptable alternatives and managing the side effects that might be caused. They are ready to bear higher costs so that there are no unintended changes in taste or texture.

Companies do not want to risk losing their loyal consumers at the cost of baseless experimenting. This new environment and changes are, however, frustrating some players in the food industry, as they have spent decades to advance technologically and make packaged food cheaper and more flavorful.

A lot of companies have started swapping their ingredients in order to make food that consumers consider safe. Candy maker The Hershey Co. decided in February that it would try to create a simpler and shorter list of items that consumers “recognize and trust.”

Although incorporating some changes is easy, a lot of changes add to the costs. For instance, it was easy for Hershey to switch to cane sugar from genetically modified beet sugar. But emulsifiers like polyglycerol polyricinoleate can only be replaced by adding more cocoa butter so that the chocolate will continue to flow into the molds properly. This not only increases cost, but also adds trace amounts of fat.

Added cost, reduced shelf life, but natural ingredients are healthier

The process of trying to change colors while using natural ingredients offers varying levels of difficulty. The most difficult colors to replicate are blue and green because of the instability of similar colored fruit juices. Not all of them stay edible after exposure to heat or different acidity levels.

Ferrara Candy Co. had to try 50 different formulas over a span of eight months to find colors from natural sources that would gel with its gummy bears. It eventually settled for spirulina extract and carrot juice to get green and orange colors. The Kraft Heinz Co. managed to develop a new coloring for its macaroni and cheese using turmeric, paprika, and annatto extract from seeds of achiote trees. The shift shortened the product’s shelf life from 10 to 8½ months. But as per the online reviews, consumers didn’t notice a change in flavor.

Companies have been making a permanent shift and are moving towards natural ingredients. General Mills pledged in June to remove artificial ingredients from its cereals by the end of 2017. Rival Kellogg Co. followed the suit and announced in August its plan to remove synthetic food dyes from cereals such as Froot Loops and Nutri-Grain bars by 2018.

“It is about finding the right balance of getting that color we want without having to completely change the formula. We ate a ton of cereal,” said Kate Gallager, a cereal developer at General Mills.

Refer to both men and women by first and last name: “Susan Smith,” not “Mrs. Smith.” The only time you should use courtesy titles are if a woman specifically requests it or when it is necessary to distinguish between two people with the same last name.