By the end of this year your favorite Nestle candy bar could be missing something, but chances are you won’t notice the change. Nestle recently announced they will be removing artificial colors and flavors from over 250 products covering 10 brands and 75 recipes. Instead of Red 40 and Yellow 5, the color for the crunchy center of a Butterfinger will come from the seeds of the fruit of the achiote tree – annatto. Likewise, natural vanilla flavor will replace the artificial flavor “vanillin” in Nestle Crunch bars. These changes were driven, the company says, by research they conducted which showed that consumers “prefer candy brands to be free from artificial flavors and colors”.

Similarly, The Hershey Company recently announced that going forward they will be focusing on three principles: simple ingredients, sharing ingredients, and thoughtful and responsible sourcing of ingredients. In keeping with these principles Hershey has announced that by the end of 2015 two of their iconic products, Hershey’s Kisses and Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bars, will be non-GMO. John Bibrey, President and CEO of The Hershey Company, acknowledged that people are spending more time talking about the food they are eating and recognized that consumers want simple ingredients and transparency in what ingredients are included in products.

These are just two more examples of big corporations responding to consumer pressure to improve their products. In the grand scheme of things these may be baby steps and certainly not a moment too soon, but they are encouraging signs that somewhere, in a plush office or a cushy boardroom, the message is being heard. People want food that is authentic and genuine. They don’t want to feed their families chemicals or lab experiments. If we continue to make that clear in the grocery store by purchasing food that is produced responsibly without artificial or other questionable additives more and more companies will be forced to listen and respond. One easy way to find such food is to use the search feature at greenestbeans.com. This feature allows you to search for a variety of food using any combination of fourteen different attributes. Check it out today, and keep checking back as we will be adding more products in the future.