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Last week, Walmart announced the planned removal of over 30 ingredients from its U.S. private brand foods, including Great Value, Marketside, Freshness Guaranteed and bettergoods. This includes widely used additives such as Red 40, Yellow 5, titanium dioxide, and Propylparaben. According to the company, the change will affect every item across its U.S. private-brand food portfolio by 2027.
For anyone managing national food brands or private-label assortments, the shift presents operational, reputational, and commercial risk. It also creates a unique data problem: how do you determine which products are affected, how shoppers are responding, and what actions to prioritize?
We approached this challenge from both a data and consumer perspective. The goal was to understand the practical implications at the product, brand, and category level, while providing teams with a path forward based on what’s actually in-market today and what shoppers are already saying.
We began by mapping the 30+ ingredients identified in Walmart’s announcement against Harmonya’s enrichment layer. These attributes are derived from structured and unstructured product data across product description pages and reviews. For every tagged ingredient, we identified the relevant UPCs currently on Walmart shelves. This allowed us to quantify brand exposure with precision.
Once the matches were made, we layered in performance data. Products containing the targeted ingredients were scored by sales volume, shelf presence, and ingredient overlap. This surfaced three critical questions:
We shared this analysis with our customers to support proactive planning. These teams were able to view ingredient exposure through three distinct lenses.
This structured approach transformed a policy announcement into a SKU-specific, revenue-weighted view of exposure. Without Harmonya's product enrichment, this level of granularity would require extensive manual mapping across ingredient lists, retail partners, and internal product data.
Ingredient risk is only one part of the equation. Shopper reaction will play a central role in shaping reformulation strategies, messaging decisions, and category leadership. Many reactions will not be visible in POS data for months. But conversations are already happening in online forums and product review sections — particularly on Reddit.
We analyzed Reddit posts and comment threads in the first few hours following the Walmart announcement. Most discussions centered around artificial dyes, with Red 40, Yellow 5, and Blue 1 mentioned most frequently. Shoppers also referenced titanium dioxide and several preservatives. The sentiment was clear.
Roughly two-thirds of Reddit users expressed support for the change. Health and safety were the most common reasons cited. Many referenced the term “clean label,” though definitions varied. There were also questions about why these ingredients were ever used in the first place.
Not all sentiment was supportive. Between 20 and 30 percent of comments included concerns about price, variety, and product quality. Some expressed worry that cleaner formulations would lead to worse taste or shorter shelf life. A few questioned whether Walmart would replace the banned ingredients with others that were equally problematic. Others said they felt conflicted: supportive of the changes in principle, but reliant on Walmart’s pricing and assortment in practice.
These conversations provide more than surface-level insight. They give context for how shoppers may interpret upcoming changes, how different segments may respond to reformulated products, and how marketing teams can shape their messaging to stave off shopper discontent.
The most immediate task for national brands is prioritization. Start by identifying the SKUs that overlap with Walmart’s banned ingredient list. High-volume products should come first. This ensures you're ready before formulation pressure becomes public.
Brands that move early will have an opportunity to shape the narrative. Packaging and messaging updates should reinforce reformulation decisions without overpromising. In parallel, brand teams should monitor reactions to any changes in taste or appearance through review data and Reddit discussions. This feedback loop will be essential for iterations.
In our view, it is also worth treating this as a category-level opportunity. If Walmart’s private label products lose favor due to taste or price changes, national brands that reformulate effectively may regain share, especially if they can support their retail partners with data and marketing coordination.
Walmart’s announcement puts pressure on other retailers to respond. This includes reformulation for private label lines, but also decisions about which national brands to prioritize. Retailers should begin engaging suppliers, not only focusing on ingredient changes, but also on timing, labeling, and shopper expectations. Clear standards and timelines will help prevent confusion downstream.
Communication strategy also matters. Removing SKUs or changing formulations without context may create friction. We saw multiple Reddit comments expressing frustration about recent changes in flavor or appearance, even if the shopper supported the removal of artificial ingredients overall.
Where assortment gaps emerge, retailers should have a plan to backfill quickly. This may involve stocking compliant alternatives or introducing new private-label items that meet updated ingredient standards.
Walmart’s ingredient ban is not a one-time reformulation event. It will trigger multi-year changes in product development, packaging, and assortment. The most effective response requires a data environment that can adapt as policies evolve and as shopper sentiment shifts.
Retailers and brands will need more than traditional panel data or quarterly surveys. They will need real-time access to product-level enrichment, combined with fast-moving feedback from consumer platforms. Without both, teams are likely to miss early signals or misinterpret the underlying drivers of shopper behavior.
This is where enrichment and sentiment layers intersect. When combined, they allow brands to answer three core questions with confidence: What changed? Who does it affect? And how are people reacting?
Let's chat about how we answer these questions for our customers every day.
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