Does Starburst Have Red 40?

Yes. The original Starburst fruit chews sold in the United States are colored with artificial dyes, and Red 40 is one of them. If you are screening candy for a dye-free household, the original U.S. bag does not pass.

Here is the full picture from the U.S. label.

The dyes on the original U.S. Starburst label

The original U.S. Starburst ingredient list includes four FD&C color additives:

• Red 40 (Allura Red AC)
• Yellow 5 (Tartrazine)
• Yellow 6 (Sunset Yellow FCF)
• Blue 1 (Brilliant Blue FCF)

Those four dyes, blended in different proportions, produce the colors of the fruit chews — strawberry, orange, lemon and lime. There is no separate "natural color" line on the original label doing that work.

The 2026 change — and why your bag is probably still the dyed one

On August 13, 2026, Mars released versions of Starburst Original Fruit Chews (alongside Skittles Original, Extra Gum Spearmint, and M&M's Milk Chocolate) made without FD&C colors, sold on Amazon. Two things matter for a shopper: Mars states the original dyed versions remain available alongside the new ones, so the bag on the grocery shelf is still the dyed formula unless you have specifically sought out the new SKU. Source: Mars press release, 2026-08-13.

The practical rule: check the label of the bag in front of you. A headline about a dye-free launch tells you nothing about the bag in your hand — the ingredient list does.

What to buy instead

If the goal is candy with no artificial dyes at all — and no hunting for a special version — look for a label where the colors are named foods, not numbered dyes: fruit and vegetable juice concentrates, spirulina, turmeric, beet.

That's the recipe we make. USA Gummies colors come from fruit and vegetable extracts — beet juice, turmeric, spirulina, carrot — with no Red 40, no Yellow 5, no Yellow 6, no Blue 1, and no high-fructose corn syrup either. Ten ingredients, five flavors in every bag, made in the U.S.A.

The short answer

• Original U.S. Starburst: Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1 — yes, it has Red 40.
• A dye-free version launched on Amazon in August 2026; the original dyed version is still sold alongside it.
• Dye-free candy exists as the standard recipe, not a special edition — check that colors on the label are foods, not numbers.