A decades-old candy variant and a storied piece of rock ‘n’ roll lore will reportedly disappear in one fell swoop later this summer.
M&M’s maker Mars will commemorate the product’s 85th anniversary by relaunching the candy in August without artificial dyes, The Wall Street Journal reports. But the switch to natural coloring will come at a price, as brown and blue M&M’s will reportedly be removed from the lineup.
While Mars was able to recreate red and yellow dye with natural sources such as beets and turmeric, blue and brown proved much more difficult and costly to replicate. It can be done with spirulina extract, a blue-green algae and “superfood” that can cost anywhere from $20 per pound in its raw form to $100 per pound in its concentrated form (which is most often used for food dyes), according to Fox Business.
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Compare that to the roughly $10 per pound cost of turmeric, and it’s easy to see how brown and blue M&M’s quickly become cost-prohibitive. Spirulina has also caused clogging in the M&M’s factory spray nozzles, further complicating Mars’ attempts to comply with the Make America Healthy Again agenda.
How Van Halen Turned Brown M&M’s Into Rock ‘n’ Roll Legend
While some candy enthusiasts may balk at the reduced M&M’s color lineup, the change would have come as a great relief for one legendary rock band at the heights of its powers (or at least the promoters who worked with them): Van Halen.
The rockers’ tour rider famously called for bowls of M&M’s to be provided backstage, but with all the brown pieces removed. This was not a case of simple rock star megalomania or superstition, but a test to confirm promoters had read their contract closely and could assure a safe stage setup.
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“Many years ago, it was part of the Van Halen contract as we toured through the arenas in the ’80s that there would be no brown M&M’s found in the backstage area or the promoter would forfeit the entire show at full pay,” Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth explained in 2012. “This was touted wildly and widely as simple rock star misdemeanor excess and being abusive of others simply because we could — and who am I to get in the way of a good rumor?”
But there was a method to the band’s madness. “Van Halen was the first to take 850 par lamp lights, huge lights, around the country,” Roth explained. Their high-tech stage production led to structural issues at some of the older, more primitive venues they played. So in the middle of Van Halen’s rider, Roth added a clause banning brown M&M’s just to make sure the promoters had actually read their contract.
“If I came backstage, having been one of the architects of this lighting and staging design, and I saw brown M&M’s on the catering table, then guaranteed the promoter had not read the contract rider and we had to do a serious line check,” Roth explained. If the promoters failed the test, Van Halen would go about “ceremoniously and very theatrically destroying the dressing room to try to get the message across, lest we have a disaster.”
David Lee Roth Explains Van Halen’s ‘No Brown M&M’s’ Legend
Van Halen Lineup Changes: A Complete Guide
Three different singers and two different bassists joined the Van Halen brothers over the years.
