How brightly colored do we want our food? For brands, it's a hill to dye on

Cupcake icing and sports drinks — in all their crayon-like colors — are the final frontiers for Nick Scheidler's team.

Scheidler leads product development at Walmart's Sam's Club, which in 2022 committed to — by the end of this year — remove dozens of ingredients from its store brand called Member's Mark. That includes high-fructose corn syrup, some preservatives and artificial dyes.

The latter proved the trickiest.

"Color has been a challenge for us," says Scheidler. "We're not going to send muted colors out into the market, right?"

Right?

The race is on now, under pressure from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and some states . Major food brands are pledging to phase out synthetic dye from snacks, candy and cereals: Kraft Heinz , Nestle, Campbell's . Even Mars says it