When a group of West Virginia legislators in February introduced a bill that would ban a slate of artificial dyes from school meals within months, school districts didn’t expect it to gain much traction.
But the bill quickly moved through the legislature and was signed into law in March. It then took effect Aug. 1, giving schools across the state less than five months to comply.
There was a “shock factor” at the pace of change, said Chris Derico, child nutrition director for the Barbour County school district, and he was concerned that it might be a big undertaking to overhaul menus that had already been set for the next school year.
“We weren’t really paying attention to what dyes were in the menus prior to this,” Derico said. “My first reaction was, ‘How the heck are we supposed to do this timeline?’”
Those fears largely didn’t come to pass, though, Derico said, thanks in part to preexisting federal school meal nutrition standards, recent movement by food manufacturers and industry groups to remove many artificial dyes from their products, and action from the Food and Drug Administration to phase out petroleum-based dyes—which have been linked to elevated cancer risk and hyperactivity and neurobehavioral problems in children.
West Virginia’s law bans seven artificial dyes from school meals—including red dyes No. 3 and 40, yellow dyes No. 5 and 6, and blue dyes No. 1 and 2—effective Aug. 1, before it expands to ban those same dyes from all food products sold within the state by 2028.
It is the first state law of its kind that has already taken effect, but is part of a much larger movement nationwide that has garnered bipartisan support and been accelerated by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s “Make America Healthy Again” push to cut down on the additives in foods.
Other states, including California, Delaware, Louisiana, and Texas, have passed laws that ban certain food dyes from foods served in schools—including, in some cases, in on-site vending machines—but those laws have longer runways for implementation.
Some products found to contain some of the dyes included in the West Virginia ban include certain Gatorade flavors, candies including M&Ms and Skittles, Pop Tarts, Doritos, and cereals such as Froot Loops and Lucky Charms.
The ban might have a larger effect on consumers shopping in grocery stores, said Diane Pratt-Heavner, the director of media relations for the School Nutrition Association.
Schools generally don’t serve many of the affected products routinely because they follow federal nutrition standards, generally from the Obama and Biden administrations, that require districts to serve whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, and limit the amount of sodium and sugar in meals.
“This is an area that K-12 is a leader on, and a good model for the rest of the commercial retail market,” said Pratt-Heavner, who added that her organization hasn’t heard of any widespread struggles to comply in West Virginia. “Overall, we are hearing from people saying, ‘There weren’t as many items on our menu as we expected that contain these ingredients’ and they’ve been able to find alternatives.”
West Virginia districts have run into few hiccups in eliminating dyes
In West Virginia, Derico said his district, which serves 2,100 students, worked quickly to review the products on its menus for the 2025-26 school year, but didn’t find many that violated the new food dye ban.
One hiccup was that the district occasionally serves Doritos as part of a “walking taco” meal—when taco ingredients are served inside of a chip bag instead of on a taco shell. Doritos contain several of the banned dyes.
The solution was relatively simple, though, Derico said. The Barbour County district switched the chips from Doritos to Tostitos, and “I haven’t really heard any negative feedback yet,” Derico said.
The switch didn’t come with a significant price difference, either, he said, and the district hasn’t seen any notable cost differences for other products it’s had to switch out due to the ban.
“When it comes to having access to items that we need, there’s no issue there. And, while we feel there have been some price increases, it’s not anything clearly due to the dyes,” Derico said. “It’s more been general inflation that we’re seeing for everything anyway.”
The one exception: strawberry milk.
When the district’s food manufacturer removed dyes from the flavored milk, the price increased enough that Derico decided to not provide it daily anymore.
Collaboration is key to navigating the dye ban, districts say
It’s not realistic for nutrition directors to sit down and read the labels of every single product on their menus, especially with the tight turnaround provided by West Virginia’s new law, Derico said.
But he and his colleagues across the state are working together to “achieve the intent of the law” and then address anything that initially fell through the cracks.
“I am sure I’m going to make mistakes, and I’m going to serve something with one of these dyes,” Derico said. “I’m sure I’m going to have a cafeteria manager reading a label and find it for me, and I’ll fix it the next go-around.”
About 20 district nutrition directors from across the state meet bimonthly to network and collaborate. In recent months, they’ve shared updates about products they’ve identified on their menus that violate the state’s new ban.
It was at one of those meetings that another nutrition director shared that the instant mashed potatoes their district had been using had a dye listed on the label. It was a surprise to everyone, Derico said, because mashed potatoes are white, and other districts might have overlooked the item.
The West Virginia Department of Education’s child nutrition office has also set up a shared database that districts can access to easily see if a product has been identified as having a banned dye, Derico said.
District leaders can also add products to the database as they identify them, he said.
