The food and beverage industry is experiencing one of the fastest ingredient transitions in decades. With consumers turning away from ultra-processed foods, regulators calling for removal of synthetic food additives, and major retailers imposing strict deadlines for reformulations, food and beverage manufacturers are facing a push for more natural products. This transition touches every corner of the food value chain, from research and development to sourcing, processing, sanitation and distribution.
To help clarify what this moment means for production facilities and the agricultural supply chain, we spoke with Mark Vermeij, a process technology director with over 30 years of process experience, who shares insights on where pressures are mounting, how plants can adapt and what it will take to stay ahead of constantly shifting expectations.
A: A perfect storm of significant forces is hitting all at once. Consumers are scrutinizing ultra-processed foods and pushing brands to simplify ingredient labels. As part of the Make America Healthy Again initiative, the Food and Drug Administration wants to totally eliminate additives like Red 40 , titanium dioxide, propylparaben, butylated hydroxytoluene and other additives frequently used in ultra-processed foods. Several states are also enacting bans on specific dyes, additives and preservatives that take effect as early as 2027, often starting with school meal standards. Once one state bans a substance, it often functions as a catalyst toward a nationwide ban.
Retailers are accelerating the shift, too. Walmart, for example, plans to remove synthetic dyes and more than 30 additives from its private‑label food products by January 2027. Target recently announced plans to carry only cereals made without certified synthetic colors by May of 2026. When retailers of that scale set a deadline, suppliers must move quickly or risk losing shelf space. This retailer‑driven pressure has become one of the industry’s biggest disruptors and the major catalyst for widespread product reformulation.
A: When synthetic additives are removed, so is the protection and functionality they provide such as preservatives that extend shelf life, artificial colors that make products look the same and stabilizers that help foods hold up during freezing, re-heating and long trips through the supply chain. Without these additives, facility owners have to lean more on strong process controls to keep products consistent and safe. Stabilizing natural colors may involve optimizing pH control, reducing exposure to heat and light and using microencapsulation to protect pigments.
Operational tweaks like adjusting blend times and ratios, fine‑tuning heating and cooling curves, or changing storage conditions can help support better stabilization, longer shelf life and less product variation. Since natural pigments often aren’t as concentrated, another thing to consider is that more raw, natural product will be needed. Switching to higher volumes or different ingredient formats, for instance starting with a liquid instead of a solid raw material, can introduce new sanitation, microbiological and allergen risks. As a result, manufacturers may need to revise ingredient handling, storage temperatures, clean‑in‑place and warehousing practices.
A: Schedule pressures and having to develop construction projects when so much is up in the air are two of the biggest challenges right now. Companies are being asked to reformulate entire product lines before the dust has settled on all ingredient bans. That forces capital decisions to be made with incomplete information and this is something manufacturers are often uncomfortable with. Upstream readiness is another challenge. If demand spikes for natural pigments from plants such as carrots, paprika or butterfly pea flower extract, which was recently approved as a natural food dye by the FDA, farmers, processors and manufacturers all have to scale together. In many cases, agricultural capacity has to expand before processors can increase output, which creates a timing bottleneck all the way down the supply chain.
A: Flexibility with construction and processes has to be the guiding principles. For a while, manufacturing plants will be running old and new formulations side by side. That means using more modular equipment such as cookers, mixers and holding tanks that can be added or moved without major rebuilding. Ingredient systems should be able to handle both liquid and dry ingredients, and utilities need room to grow. Because regulations are still shifting, companies have to plan for multiple potential future formulations. That can involve rerouting process flows, setting up zoning that works across different sanitation or allergen profiles, and building infrastructure that lets facility owners add equipment quickly. And it’s critical to bring construction and design teams in early together so schedule pressure guides the right technical decisions.
A: Most of the innovation is happening in how facilities scale and stay agile. On the construction side, manufacturing plants are shifting toward building facilities that allow for flexible lines that run multiple formulations, expanding refrigerated warehousing, adding utility capacity and building routing systems that make quick reconfiguration possible. On the product side, new approaches to food additive stabilization are improving consistency. Updated high pressure processing and high temperature short time techniques are reducing degradation and extending shelf life, and new bioengineered stabilizing agents are reducing batch variation. All of this supports the construction and development of scalable, adaptable facilities that enable high product quality and safety.
A: Project owners need to begin with a holistic facility assessment to identify the upgrades and major changes required immediately. This should include everything from temperature profiles across processing and sanitation requirements to ingredient handling, area classifications and overall layout. After that, focus on retrofit strategies, and modular prefabricated construction because the deadlines are coming quickly.
Owners also need to align capital planning with timelines of both upstream as well as downstream partners. State requirements and deadlines may look generous, but retailers often shorten them in response to public demand. Acting now, even without perfect formulation or ingredient data, will give food and beverage manufacturers the chance to hit both regulatory and go‑to‑market deadlines. The teams that succeed will invest in flexible, modular systems, bring construction partners in early, and treat reformulation as an ongoing and evolving process. The goal isn’t to create one perfect natural formula; it’s to develop a facility that can adapt quickly as regulations, consumer expectations and retailer standards continue to shift well into the future.