Foods

Dyes in chips, crackers and snacks

Savory snacks use dyes differently from sweets: orange and red seasonings rather than bright candy colors. The yellows lead here.

Search labeled products by category and dye

Chips, crackers and snacks: products whose label lists a tracked dye or additive

6,863 of 55,086

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USDA FoodData Central, Branded Foods, release of 2026-10-29. The label date is when the record was submitted: recipes change, so check the package in your hand.

The largest category in the data, 55,086 products of chips, pretzels, popcorn, nuts, snack crackers and mixes, has 12% of labels naming a tracked substance. The order is the reverse of candy: Yellow 6 is first at 8%, Yellow 5 next at 8%, and Red 40 third at 6%. That pattern comes from cheese, nacho and spicy seasonings, where yellow and red lakes give the orange dust its color, often listed inside the seasoning's own ingredients. Plain chips, nuts and pretzels rarely list any. Some snack mixes also contain coated candy pieces, which bring Blue 1 and titanium dioxide into the category. Snacks are the core of what states call competitive food, sold in vending machines and school stores, so laws such as Virginia's, Iowa's or Arizona's that reach competitive food apply to them directly from each start date.

How common is this ingredient in a food category?

Chips, crackers and snacks whose label lists Red 40

6.3%

Products listing it3,457
Products in the category55,086

USDA FoodData Central, Branded Foods; labels were submitted over several years and recipes change.

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Laws and FDA orders read by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Method and sources

Seasonings inside the list

A snack label may show the seasoning as a sub-list in parentheses, such as "seasoning (salt, cheese, Yellow 6 Lake, Yellow 5 Lake...)". The checker reads names wherever they are in the text. Many seasoned snacks also use paprika extract or annatto for the same color, which no state law covers. The Yellow 6 page gives the federal status and state rules for the leading dye here.

What the labels list, substance by substance

55,086 products, 55,021 with an ingredient list; USDA FoodData Central, Branded Foods, release of October 29, 2026.
SubstanceProductsShare of the category
Red 403,4576.3%
Red 36381.2%
Yellow 54,1827.6%
Yellow 64,3828.0%
Blue 12,3354.2%
Blue 21,1152.0%
Green 370.0%
Potassium bromate180.0%
Propylparaben1050.2%
Titanium dioxide1,2792.3%
BHA3390.6%

Questions people ask

How many chips, crackers and snacks products were counted, and how recent are their labels?

55,086 products, one per barcode, from the USDA FoodData Central Branded Foods release of October 29, 2026. 6,863 of them list at least one of the 14 substances tracked here. Most labels in the data set were filed in 2021 to 2023, so recipes may have changed since.

Which dye is listed most often in chips, crackers and snacks?

Yellow 6, on 4,382 labels or 8.0% of the category, followed by Yellow 5 (4,182) and Red 40 (3,457). A product often lists several at once, so the counts overlap. The table on this page gives every tracked substance. Counts come from the labels, not from tests of the products themselves.

Are chips, crackers and snacks with these dyes legal to sell?

Yes, in stores, except for substances whose federal date has passed, such as BVO, or will pass, such as Red 3 on January 15, 2027, and from January 1, 2027 for the four substances of California's Food Safety Act in that state. School rules in several states limit what schools serve or sell, not what stores sell.

Check next

Foods with Red 40

Search US products whose label lists Red 40 or another tracked dye, by category, from USDA FoodData Central, with each label's date.

Ingredient list checker

Paste an ingredient list: every tracked dye or additive found, by FD&C name, lake, E or INS number, with its status in your state.

Dye laws by state

Pick a state and a dye or additive: the FDA rule, every state law that names it, and the date each one starts.

Natural food colors

The colors exempt from certification that replace synthetic dyes, the new ones the FDA approved since 2025, and two still on hold.

Laws and official pages behind this page

Written by

Independent publisher of a state-by-state tracker of food dye and additive laws in the United States, with an ingredient-list checker built on USDA FoodData Central

Laws and FDA orders checked on · Editorial policy · Contact

Food dye and additive rules 2026, read in each state law and in the Federal Register, last checked on