What happened to the red Froot Loop?

I recently went to the grocery store and picked up a couple of boxes of Kellogg’s Froot Loops cereal. Upon getting home I realized the two boxes were not the same: Only one contained red loops!

The two boxes are pictured above; the left one with red loops had a manufacture date of 4 March 2024 while the right box without the red loops was produced on 9 May 2024. After inspecting their ingredients lists, the only difference was that the older box contained radish within its fruit and vegetable concentrates while the newer one did not.

I was a bit curious as to why Froot Loops had become 33% less colorful, especially given that I grew up in the US where the Froot Loops have six vibrant colors using artifical food colorings, contrasted against the European version’s (until now) three natural colors—red, yellow, and purple. Unable to find any information online about this change (and noticing that even on the official Kellogg’s European websites that the images of the Froot Loops boxes had not yet reflected this change), I reached out to the Kellogg’s UK contact page to lightheartedly ask about the reason behind this change and whether it was a permanent one. Their excellent consumer affairs department got back to me promptly with the following explanation:

Thank you for getting in touch with us regarding the new Kellogg’s Froot Loops recipe.

From time to time we evolve our recipes so that we can continue to meet our consumers’ needs and expectations. We identified that the red vegetable colouring we use for the red loop in Kellogg’s Froot Loops has increased significantly in price as a raw material so in order to minimise any pricing impact for our loyal Froot Loops fans, we made the decision to remove this colour. Froot Loops will now be a feast of our yellow and purple coloured loops and most importantly, keep the great taste our consumers know and love.

Furthermore, to answer your question about whether this is a permanent change: yes, this is indeed a permanent change for Froot Loops from Kellogg’s.

So, there we have it; the mystery is solved. The red loops are permanently gone owing to a raw materials price increase. While this is slightly dissapointing news, I am happy to report the new two-toned Froot Loops are indeed just as delicious as their tri-toned predecessor. :)