Does Your Kid’s Cereal Have Red 40? 16 That Don’t

The Berry teamPublished November 10, 20267 min read

Most well-known cereals have no Red 40 (also called Red Dye 40), and General Mills says all of its US cereals, including Lucky Charms and Trix, are now made without artificial dyes. We found 16 popular cereals without it, including kids’ favorites like Lucky Charms, Trix and Cocoa Pebbles. Below are the cereals that still list it, the ones that switched, the ones that never used it, and how to check any box in about 20 seconds.

Older boxes stay on shelves after a recipe changes, so the ingredient list on the box in your hand has the final say.

Cereals that still list Red 40

All eight are fruit-flavored or marshmallow cereals made for kids. We read each current label on the brand’s own page, its SmartLabel page, or a retailer page when the brand shows no ingredients, on November 9, 2026.

Kellogg's Froot Loops with Marshmallows package

Some of these are about to change. WK Kellogg said on August 6, 2026 that new recipes for Froot Loops and Apple Jacks go into production “later this year,” with shipments to stores before year-end. Walmart’s pledge on FDA’s tracker of company commitments is to remove artificial dyes from its store-brand foods by January 2027. Until the new boxes reach your store, expect to see both versions.

Cereals that switched in 2026

Lucky Charms and Trix now list colors from fruit, vegetable and spice sources instead of Red 40. Both photos show the boxes from before the switch.

Two things to know before you trust a box or a web listing:

Old stock and old listings linger. On November 9, Target’s listing for the 18.6 oz Lucky Charms box still showed Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6 and Blue 1, and the Lucky Charms Minis page still listed Red 40. A store page can lag the box, and the box on the shelf can be older than the recipe.
Look for the callout. General Mills’ new boxes carry a “Colors from Natural Sources” note on the front, which appears on the Lucky Charms and Trix packs in its announcement. The ingredient list is still the thing to read.

Carmine, one of the new Lucky Charms colors, comes from cochineal insects, which matters if you avoid animal ingredients.

Why Red 40 is being removed

Red 40 is still legal in US food. What changed is the pressure to drop it. In April 2025, FDA announced it would work with food companies to phase out six petroleum-based dyes, including Red 40, and companies have since posted their own deadlines on FDA’s pledge tracker.

Most of the concern is about children. California’s environmental health agency concluded in 2021 that synthetic food dyes can affect behavior in some children, and that children vary in how sensitive they are. The European Union allows Red 40, listed there as Allura Red or E129, but foods that contain it must carry a warning that it “may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children.”

If a child’s diet is a medical question, a pediatrician is the right person to ask.

Cereals without Red 40

These 14 cereals had no Red 40 or any other artificial dye on their current label when we checked on November 9, 2026. With Lucky Charms and Trix above, that makes 16.

General Mills

Kellogg’s

Post

Where a count is above zero, most of the labels with dyes are colored or flavored editions of the line (holiday colors, marshmallow pieces, berry flavors), and a few are older versions of the original. If you buy a special edition, read its own label.

Watch for mashups, mixed packs and special editions of these cereals. Frosted Flakes mixed with Froot Loops or Apple Jacks, mixed packs that include Lucky Charms, Cinnamon Toast Crunch Rolls, holiday colored Rice Krispies and berry Frosted Mini-Wheats have all listed dyes. The current regular box of each cereal above does not.

Red 40 free is not the same as dye free

If you avoid all artificial dyes, look for Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1, Blue 2, Green 3 and Red 3 too, not only Red 40.

What 8,717 cereal labels show

Red 40 is concentrated in marshmallow and fruity cereals: about 4 in 5 of their labels list it. Granola alone is 2,450 of these labels and almost never lists a dye, which is why the overall share looks low.

These labels were collected over several years, so they show where Red 40 has been used, not what is on shelves this week.

Store and value brands carry much of it. Of the 1,130 labels with Red 40, 528 are sold under brand names other than Kellogg’s, General Mills, Post and Quaker, and another 149 are Malt-O-Meal, Post’s bagged line.
Lines that were always dye free stay that way across labels. Every label we found for Cheerios, Chex, Kix, Corn Flakes and Raisin Bran is free of artificial dyes.

So the practical rule is short: if a cereal is not bright and fruity, it very likely has no Red 40. If it is a fruity or marshmallow cereal, and especially a store-brand copy, check the label.

How to check a cereal box in 20 seconds

Kellogg's Froot Loops

Ingredients

Corn flour blend (whole grain yellow corn flour, degerminated yellow corn flour), sugar, wheat flour, whole grain oat flour, modified food starch, contains 2% or less of vegetable oil (hydrogenated coconut, soybean and/or cottonseed), oat fiber, maltodextrin, salt, soluble corn fiber, natural flavor, Red 40, Yellow 5, Blue 1, Yellow 6.

Red an artificial dye
Bold where colors usually sit

Ingredients as listed on Kellogg's SmartLabel page, checked November 9, 2026, vitamins and minerals left off.

Go to the end of the ingredient list. Colors are usually listed near the end, often after “contains 2% or less of”.
Look for the names. US rules require artificial dyes, which FDA calls certified colors, to be listed by name, for example “Red 40”, “Red 40 Lake” or “FD&C Red No. 40”. The other artificial dyes in US food are Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1, Blue 2, Green 3 and Red 3.
“Color added” alone is not Red 40. The same rule lets colors that need no certification, such as fruit juice or annatto, be listed as “color added” or “artificial color” without a name. The dyes above are always listed by name.
Front-of-box claims help, within limits. FDA said in February 2026 it will not object to “no artificial colors” claims on foods without these dyes. The claim is a useful signal; the ingredient list is the proof.
Match the exact box. Size, flavor and age change the recipe. Lucky Charms is a case where two sizes of the same cereal showed different colors on the same day.

Spot Red 40 in one scan

Spotting Red 40 on a label takes time, especially in a long ingredient list. When you scan a cereal, the Berry app does it for you and marks the ingredients you avoid, Red 40 and other dyes included. You can also photograph the box if a cereal isn’t on file yet. Recipes change, like the ones above, so for a strict avoid, the box in your hand has the final say.

We counted bread labels the same way: bread without seed oils, brand by brand.

Common questions

Do Froot Loops still have Red 40?

Yes. On November 9, 2026, the US Froot Loops label listed Red 40, Yellow 5, Blue 1 and Yellow 6, and so did Froot Loops with Marshmallows and Apple Jacks. WK Kellogg has said new recipes without artificial dyes reach stores before the end of 2026.

Did Lucky Charms get rid of Red 40?

The standard box did. Its label now lists colors from vegetable and fruit juice, carmine, spirulina, turmeric and paprika. Some larger boxes and Lucky Charms Minis were still listed with Red 40 on November 9, so check the box you buy.

Does Fruity Pebbles still have Red 40?

Yes. Fruity Pebbles listed Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6 and Blue 1 on November 9, 2026. Cocoa Pebbles uses caramel color and no artificial dyes.

Do Cheerios have Red 40?

No. None of the 209 Cheerios labels we found, across every flavor and size, lists an artificial dye.

Does Cap’n Crunch have Red 40?

Original Cap’n Crunch doesn’t, but it lists Yellow 5 and Yellow 6. Crunch Berries lists Red 40 along with Yellow 5, Blue 1 and Yellow 6.

Does Cinnamon Toast Crunch have Red 40?

The regular cereal doesn’t; its only color is caramel color. Of the 53 Cinnamon Toast Crunch labels we found, 4 list Red 40: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Rolls boxes and mixed multipacks that include Lucky Charms.

Is Red 40 banned in the US?

No. Red 40 is still an authorized food color in the US, but FDA has asked companies to phase it out and many have set deadlines. The European Union allows it with a warning label about children’s attention. More in why Red 40 is being removed.

How we checked the labels

Label counts. On November 9, 2026 we took every US breakfast cereal label with an English ingredient list in the product data the Berry app uses, which includes data from USDA FoodData Central and Open Food Facts (Open Database License). That gave 8,717 labels. We searched each ingredient list for Red 40 and for every artificial dye by its label name, chemical name and E number.
What the counts can and cannot say. The labels span several years and include older recipes. They show where Red 40 has been used; they do not show today’s shelf share, which is lower after the 2026 reformulations.