Color and flavor shape how a gummy looks and how its label reads. Supplement brands are replacing certified colors and synthetic flavors with fruit juices, spices, and plant extracts, pushed by shoppers and regulators.
Clean Labels Are What the Market Wants
Shoppers read labels, and beetroot extract is easier to explain than FD&C Red No. 40. Natural sources signal a cleaner label, and demand for fewer artificial additives keeps climbing.
Regulation: The Red No. 3 Deadline and Dye Phase-Out
Natural colors are a compliance question now. In January 2025 the FDA revoked FD&C Red No. 3 in foods, including dietary supplements, with a food deadline of January 15, 2027. In April 2025, HHS and the FDA announced a national initiative to phase out all petroleum-based certified dyes.
The labeling rules changed in February 2026. The FDA said it would not act against "no artificial colors" claims on foods that contain no certified colors, even when natural colors remain. Previously it applied only to products with no added color at all. Dietary supplement labels follow the same food rules, so a reformulated gummy can carry the claim.
Pigment Behavior Varies by Source
Each pigment has its own chemistry. Anthocyanins, behind many red and purple fruit colors, shift from red toward blue as pH rises, so they hold color in an acidic gummy but drift in a neutral one, while betalains from beetroot and curcumin from turmeric respond differently to heat, light, and oxygen.
Manufacturing: Know the Challenges
Natural colors are less stable to light, heat, and oxygen, so higher usage levels are needed to hold a shade. Natural flavors vary in potency from lot to lot, and the pigments cost more per unit of color than certified dyes. This is manageable. A manufacturer running natural colors daily controls pH, runs stability testing, and sets the label claim. Pick one that shows you data, not just a color card.
Natural colors and flavors carry a deadline. Reformulating early means you control the shade and the label claim, with shelf-life data in hand.