SB 545 West Virginia Senate · 2025 Regular Session

Banning certain products from food in WV

West Virginia's SB 545 bans seven specific artificial food dyes (Red 3, Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1, Blue 2, and Green 3) from all meals served in school nutrition programs starting August 1, 2025. The bill directly affects public schools by prohibiting these dyes as ingredients in school-provided meals. It allows schools to sell non-compliant food items during fundraising events held off-campus or at least 30 minutes after school ends. This change aims to remove dyes deemed potentially harmful, focusing on school meal safety without restricting other food sales.

Bill status in committee 1 of 4 stages cleared

Introduction

Feb 2025

Committee Review

Floor Vote

Governor

Introduced Feb 20, 2025 Last action Mar 3, 2025

Maddy AI version diff · 1 comparison

What changed between versions

Introduced Version → Committee Substitute · 4 edits

MODERATE

The bill text was reformatted from a legislative introduction version to a committee substitute version, with significant website navigation elements added and removed. The core policy content regarding prohibited food additives in school nutrition programs remains substantively unchanged, though the effective date was modified from July 1, 2025 to August 1, 2025, and additional language was added to the existing food adulteration statute. The document also includes new amendments to §16-7-2 regarding what constitutes adulterated food products.

Scope change

The bill's scope regarding prohibited food additives in school nutrition programs remains the same, but the effective date was extended by one month from July 1, 2025 to August 1, 2025. Additionally, the existing food adulteration statute was amended to include specific dye additives in its prohibited list and set a future effective date of January 1, 2027 for those amendments.

TIMELINE

The effective date for prohibiting unsafe food additives in school nutrition programs was changed from July 1, 2025 to August 1, 2025, providing schools an additional month of preparation time.

A new provision was added stating that amendments to the food adulteration statute made during the 2025 regular session will take effect on January 1, 2027.

REQUIREMENT

New language was added to the existing food adulteration statute (§16-7-2) to explicitly list specific dye additives (Blue No. 1, Blue No. 2, Green No. 3, Red No. 3, Red No. 40, Yellow No. 5, and Yellow No. 6) as poisonous or injurious to health.

TECHNICAL

The document format was changed from an introduced version to a committee substitute version, with extensive website navigation elements added and removed, and the bill title was updated to reflect committee reporting.

Floor votes

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Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions

Key actions

Committee

Mar 3, 2025

Committee

Referred to Rules on 1st reading

upper

Feb 28, 2025

Upper · Passed

Committee substitute reported

upper

Feb 20, 2025

Introduced

Introduced in Senate

upper

Feb 20, 2025

Committee

To Health and Human Resources

upper

1 primary · 4 co-sponsors