The Seed Oil Question, the Color Deadline, and Why Savory Bars Are Tricky
Three more questions from our inbox this month — answered from the manufacturing floor.
Q: Every other brief we get now says "no seed oils." Is that actually achievable in a bar
Mostly yes, but not the way the internet thinks it works. Bars aren't fried, so the seed oil in a typical formula is hiding in a nut butter blend, a crisp inclusion or an emulsifier rather than in a fryer — and beef tallow, the swap everyone asks about after watching a chip brand do it, is a poor fit for most bars because it's a hard fat with a distinctly beefy note that also ends your vegan, kosher and halal claims in one move. Cocoa butter and single-ingredient nut butters do the real work here, with one warning: high-oleic sunflower oil is what a lot of suppliers will offer you as the "clean" option, and it is still, unavoidably, a seed oil. David Bar's EPG is a seed oil too- rapeseed oil.
Q: The synthetic dye phase-out is supposed to happen by the end of 2026. Do bar brands need to care?
If you have Red 40 or Yellow 5 in a coating, a drizzle or a colored inclusion, yes — the federal end-of-2026 target is a voluntary understanding with no enforcement behind it, but Walmart's January 2027 private-label cutoff and the state school-meal bans already on the books have real teeth. The harder problem is timing rather than chemistry: natural colorants cost several times what synthetics do, they depend on crops and growing seasons, and people inside the color supply chain are openly predicting a squeeze in late 2026 into early 2027 when the whole industry reformulates at once. If a petroleum-based dye is on your ingredient deck, have that conversation with your supplier now, not in the fourth quarter.
Q: Savory is the fastest-growing part of protein snacking. So why are there almost no savory bars?
Because in a bar, sugar and sweet-tasting syrups aren't only flavor — the syrups and humectants are the binder and the water activity control system at the same time, so pulling them out to build something savory costs you both structure and shelf life. That's why the major savory protein wins so far have come from extruded and baked-crisp formats — puffs, crisps, cheese snacks, meat sticks — rather than from cold-pressed bars. The version that does work is sweet-savory: miso caramel, tahini, chili-lime, salted honey. Enough savory character to read as new on shelf, without dismantling the system holding the product together.
Reformulating out of a seed oil, a synthetic dye, or into a flavor direction nobody's tried yet? That's what our Innovation Center is for. Get in touch.