On April 23 2025, the U.S. FDA and Health & Human Services confirmed a phased removal of eight petroleum-based food dyes—including Red 40 and Yellow 5—by 2026, with Citrus Red 2 and Orange B facing the axe even sooner. Brands that sell into the U.S. have begun a scramble for natural colourants that can survive heat, light, and long shelf lives.
The shift away from synthetic food dyes is precisely what Material Futures, a Kitchener, Ontario startup, has been working towards. Backed by funding from CFIN’s Innovation Booster program, the company is scaling a microbial‐fermentation platform in which wild microbes are engineered over-produce specific pigment molecules when fed with low-value processing residues—things like fruit pomace, carrot peel, or spent grain. After a gentle extraction and purification step, the result is a suite of red, yellow and purple colourants that match synthetic dyes on brilliance but beat them on consumer label friendliness.
Discarded pulp and brewers’ grain normally cost processors money to haul away. Material Futures signs supply agreements that revenue-share with those same processors: every tonne of residue becomes feedstock for pigment worth as much as $20 dollars per kilogram, flipping a disposal cost into a lucrative revenue stream.
For CPG brands, the story is equally powerful. A product tinted with pigments made from food byproducts is a circular-economy proof point that’s both visible and verifiable. Unlike ambiguous or abstract ESG claims, it’s a story consumers can literally see.
Unlike the U.S., Canada hasn’t moved to restrict synthetic dyes. Health Canada continues to permit additives like Red 40, Yellow 5, and others deemed safe under current guidelines. But for Canadian processors shipping into U.S. markets—especially retailers and QSR chains adapting to state-level bans—the pressure to reformulate is already real.
Material Futures offers a strategic head start: a domestic supply of high-performance natural colourants that meet emerging U.S. standards without the long lead times or import dependencies of overseas sources. For exporters, it’s a way to stay ahead of shifting regulations and public scrutiny—if and when the food dye policy conversation arrives north of the border.