Kraft Mac And Cheese Recipe Secretly Became Healthier

Listen up Kraft mac and cheese fans, your beloved neon yellow noodles just got a healthy makeover.

Kraft Heniz announced earlier this week that it went undercover last December and silently removed yellow 5 and yellow 6 artificial dyes from its iconic mac and cheese recipe in the United States — replacing the dyes with natural spices like paprika, annatto and turmeric for coloring. This recent health makeover by the Chicago-based food company was originally announced in April 2015.

Two things are most intriguing about the food company’s move from a marketing and customer service perspective.

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Firstly, Kraft purposely didn’t announce the change until now (using a full blown marketing campaign) because they wanted to alleviate concerns that customers would notice a taste difference. And behold, Kraft proved their point because customers didn’t say boo and now they have a healthier product.

The covert nature of this kind of marketing practice is virtually unprecedented, not to mention high risk. There are a plethora of examples of mega brands that have experienced serious customer backlash at slight changes to logos, recipes and packaging. Kraft announcing the recipe change only three months later adds an extra layer of risk.

Secondly, Kraft should be commended for responding to customer feedback and moving with the tides of public opinion. It’s no secret that consumer preference has shifted towards making food products more “natural” and less “artificial” — regardless of whether science agrees with those categorizations.

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Kraft’s recipe change was prompted by increasing public pressure to remove artificial dyes and flavors from its mac and cheese first created in 1937.

The heat began the spring of 2013 when a well-known food blogger, Food Babe, started a petition asking Kraft to rid themselves of artificial yellow dyes, suggesting they were carcinogenic. Over 365,000 people signed the petition, which noted that the same dyes were not used in the U.K. versions of Kraft mac and cheese because British customers were more vocal about their concerns.

Kraft moved to address the health concerns that were growing in the U.S., not just about its mac and cheese product, but other products as well.

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In October 2013, the food giant announced its intentions to pull artificial coloring from some of its kid-themed mac and cheese boxes in the United States and Canada: SpongeBob, Star Wars, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Halloween and winter shapes.

Then in February 2014, Kraft revealed its plans to discontinue the use of sorbic acid in some of its processed cheese slices sold in the United States because customers were requesting more recognizable ingredients.

All of Kraft’s efforts to rebrand themselves over the past several years as a business that cares about public health will undoubtedly serve them well. They are banking on bringing back former customers who might have abandoned their products and hope to renew interest from parents concerned about what they feed their kids.

We wish Kraft the best of luck!