General Mills tried natural-colored Trix. Cereal buyers wanted artificial dyes back.

General Mills was ahead of the curve when the company announced it was taking artificial colors out of some cereals a decade ago.

Just two years after that announcement, in 2017, the artificially dyed Trix were back by popular demand.

”Consumers have differing food preferences," Golden Valley-based General Mills said at the time, “and we heard from many Trix fans that they missed the bright, vibrant colors and the nostalgic taste of the classic Trix cereal.”

On Tuesday, the nation’s top public health officials indicated those fans might again find themselves disappointed under a plan to ban artificial food coloring.

“For the last 50 years, we have been running one of the largest uncontrolled scientific experiments in the world on our nation’s children without their consent,” FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said at a news conference. “And today, we are removing these petroleum-based chemicals from their food supply.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said “the industry has voluntarily agreed” to phase out artificial dyes. The FDA has not yet set a timeline for that phase-out, but food companies did not push back on Kennedy’s characterization.

“As a leader in food, we strongly support a national, industry-wide standard, and we’re committed to continuing the conversation with the administration,” General Mills said in a statement Wednesday. Nearly all of the company’s products are free of synthetic colorings like Red 40 and Blue 1.

CEO Jeff Harmening was one of several food execs to meet with Kennedy earlier this year and called the closed-door summit “productive.”

Lakeville-based cereal maker Post Consumer Brands, which uses artificial colors in Fruity Pebbles and Marshmallow Mateys, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Research is limited, but one oft-cited study by the state of California found artificial dyes can cause “adverse neurobehavioral outcomes in some children.” The food industry’s main lobbying group defended artificial dyes as “rigorously studied” and safe.

Ultimately, however, the group prefers a national standard rather than a “state patchwork of differing laws,” Consumer Brands Association CEO Melissa Hockstad said in a statement.

Food companies are already reformulating products to meet California’s ban on artificial dyes in food sold in schools starting in 2027.

While a growing number of consumers are seeking out “clean” labels and health and wellness claims in their food, taste and price are still the top drivers of purchases, surveys have shown.

For the off-color Trix, General Mills overestimated the demand for clean labels when a cereal executive declared in 2015: “Consumers increasingly want the ingredient list for their cereal to look like what they pull out of their pantry.”

In 2017, reality sunk in, as the company admitted: “Not everyone likes the same thing — and that’s perfectly OK. Our job is to make cereal people love.”