Faded Froot Loops and Dull Doritos: Is Big Food Losing the War on Dyes?

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Speaker 2 From the New York Times, I'm Natalie Ketrowa. This is the Daily.

Speaker 3 All right, dude, this morning changes are coming to some of your favorite snacks.

Speaker 2 This summer, some of the biggest food companies in America have announced that they're planning to stop using artificial food dyes. It's not just one company making this big announcement.

Speaker 7 Kraft Heinz, one of the nation's largest food companies, General Mills, the maker of cereals including cinnamon toast crunch, and iconic products like Kool-Aid and Jell-O poised for a new look.

Speaker 2 Dozens of the top ice cream makers have a great job. It's also those jet-puffed marshmallows as well as crispy.
It's a move that would transform the look of some of the most iconic brands that we buy.

Speaker 6 Everyone is saying we just don't need these artificial dyes anymore, especially

Speaker 9 today.

Speaker 2 My colleague Julie Cresswell on how the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., got big Food to commit to a change it resisted for years and that could be bad for business.

Speaker 2 It's Monday, July 28th.

Speaker 2 Julie, welcome to the show. This is your first time on the daily, right?

Speaker 10 It is.

Speaker 11 I'm so excited to be here.

Speaker 2 We're excited to have you.

Speaker 2 So, you cover the food industry, which with RFK Jr. now overseeing the Food and Drug Administration, is facing a lot of potential change.

Speaker 2 And we saw our first major example of that recently when these big food companies came out and said they are going to eliminate artificial dyes from their products.

Speaker 2 How big of a deal are these announcements? Just put this into context for me.

Speaker 14 This is for the American food system, one of the biggest changes we've seen in decades, period.

Speaker 18 No other administration, Republican, Democrat, has gotten the food industry to agree en masse to sort of make a significant change like this ever.

Speaker 23 If this works, this administration and Kennedy actually do have the opportunity to really

Speaker 18 reshape the American food system.

Speaker 2 Right. I mean, he famously says he wants to make America healthy again.

Speaker 25 Exactly.

Speaker 2 Where does his war on these artificial dyes fit in with that?

Speaker 12 He sees artificial dyes as part of the bigger picture around chronic disease.

Speaker 32 The whole issue with artificial dyes is they sort of fall in that spectrum of processed foods in America that he sees as not good for Americans and particularly American youth.

Speaker 29 But this idea of making American healthy again, and especially by going after artificial dyes, is not new.

Speaker 35 Vonnie and I are both food bloggers, and she does investigations. And we were just alarmed by what we uncovered.
Basically, these companies, these are American companies.

Speaker 36 You've had a lot of these mom fluencers and people within the movement that have been focusing on artificial dyes going back at least a decade.

Speaker 38 I'm here for all Americans who don't know the truth about our food industry. So I started a petition.

Speaker 39 Having petitions signed by people and taking it to Kellogg's and taking it to Mars and trying to pressure them to remove artificial dyes.

Speaker 2 And what were the arguments they were making about why this should happen?

Speaker 42 You know, there was a number of arguments that they were making.

Speaker 5 So what is wrong with artificial food dyes? Well, first of all, they're made in a laboratory with chemicals derived from petroleum.

Speaker 26 One is these are dyes that are made from petroleum.

Speaker 5 The same type of ingredients like gasoline, asphalt, and tar.

Speaker 37 They're not from natural ingredients at all.

Speaker 12 A second argument is, you know, these dyes are used largely in foods that are geared and marketed towards children.

Speaker 3 And they produce bogus studies that say these food dyes are healthy. because their marketing survey says that the neon colors make kids want to buy it.

Speaker 18 You know, adults aren't sitting down to a big old bowl of fruit loops.

Speaker 26 You know, it's geared to

Speaker 19 children.

Speaker 30 Well, we've all been there.

Speaker 45 But yeah, these are food that children want to eat because they're bright, they're colorful, they're fun.

Speaker 46 And, you know, marketing executives inside all these companies know that.

Speaker 26 But one of the strongest arguments lodged against these artificial food dyes really has to do with the health implications of kids consuming them in large amounts.

Speaker 35 Artificial food dyes have been proven to increase hyperactivity in children to negatively affect them.

Speaker 32 And those concerns have been echoed more recently by RFK Jr.

Speaker 48 It's very clear the dyes,

Speaker 48 all of them, are linked in very, very strong studies to ADHD.

Speaker 48 Spiel of these would make them particularly penalty.

Speaker 2 And are those claims actually true, Julie? Like, what do we know about the science there, about the evidence?

Speaker 32 There's not a huge body of evidence, and there's been no research showing a causal relationship between food dyes and ADHD.

Speaker 27 There was one study though that did start to get a lot of attention and helped kind of kick off this push against artificial dyes.

Speaker 21 You know, that occurs around 2007 in the UK when they do something called the Southampton study.

Speaker 11 Basically, they started giving children drinks.

Speaker 36 Some had artificial colors in them, and then another group that didn't.

Speaker 26 And they sort of watched their behavior.

Speaker 18 And the children that were given the drinks with red 40 or other artificial colors in them started showing more hyperactive behavior than the others.

Speaker 27 And that's what ultimately led the European Union to take sort of a tougher stance or a harder look at these artificial colors.

Speaker 2 And so in the EU, when you say they started to take a harder stance, what does that mean? What do they do?

Speaker 18 So one of the things the European Union did is in 2010, they started putting warning labels on foods and beverages and snacks that had these certain, they call them the Southampton Six.

Speaker 13 It's six specific artificial dyes that they believe are linked to behavioral issues.

Speaker 34 And now, if you buy a packet of candy that is made or contains one of these Southampton Six artificial dyes, they have a warning label on it that says something to the effect of this product could cause behavioral issues with children.

Speaker 52 Besides the warning labels on certain foods, you know, there are certain artificial colors like Red 3 that have either been banned or severely restricted in other countries because of their links to possible carcinogen and cancer in male rats.

Speaker 50 In fact, the evidence linking RED dye 3 to cancer was compelling enough that the EU banned it back in the early 1990s.

Speaker 45 But in the U.S., it took us much longer.

Speaker 10 The FDA just this year passed a ban on REDD3, and it doesn't go into effect until 2027.

Speaker 2 So it sounds like even though the body of evidence itself isn't entirely conclusive or as as robust as it could be, you're saying there's these other countries that are taking a much more aggressive stance on this.

Speaker 2 Why is that? Why hasn't the U.S. gone that route?

Speaker 45 The EU takes an approach.

Speaker 46 with regulation is sort of like what's best for the consumer.

Speaker 12 So if you're introducing a new ingredient in Europe, let's say the European Union, you know, you're going to have to produce a bunch of scientific documents and papers and research that basically says, you know, that this ingredient is not going to cause harm to the consumer.

Speaker 11 And then the European regulators, they're going to weigh about that.

Speaker 19 They're going to think about that before any new ingredient gets introduced there.

Speaker 39 It's something called the precautionary principle.

Speaker 31 Here in the United States, we tend to take sort of more of a what's good for industry approach.

Speaker 44 Big food here is a very powerful force, you know, very powerful lobbying.

Speaker 50 They've got their people that have been in and out of the FDA.

Speaker 27 They put their people on research groups and boards.

Speaker 19 And so I think the regulatory framework and the ability for companies to introduce new ingredients, at least,

Speaker 27 is a little looser.

Speaker 18 There's a little bit more self-regulation, a little bit more trust me built into the system here in the United States.

Speaker 56 But American food companies have taken steps in the past to remove artificial colors from their foods.

Speaker 10 And basically it was a bust.

Speaker 2 Why?

Speaker 18 So back in 2015, there was a movement here in the United States.

Speaker 45 Again, a little bit of writing off of the European Union.

Speaker 33 You had a push to get big food to change its ways, to dump some of these artificial colors.

Speaker 8 I love right fruity tricks. Tricks.

Speaker 18 And so at the time, you had companies like General Mills, which makes tricks breakfast cereal.

Speaker 2 General Mills announcing we'll phase out artificial colors come out with

Speaker 22 products that had no artificial colors.

Speaker 59 General Mills could not find good alternatives for blue and green pieces in his Trix cereal, so the company is getting rid of those colors. Other colors such as red won't be as vibrant.

Speaker 34 And

Speaker 18 people didn't really want it.

Speaker 36 General Mills says customers have been asking for the old formula to come back.

Speaker 18 Consumers were writing in saying that the new colors made them depressed.

Speaker 2 So what do you think?

Speaker 9 You think it was the kids or the adults complaining about tricks?

Speaker 9 That's the grown-ups.

Speaker 28 They didn't want to eat this cereal.

Speaker 60 A cereal company is bringing its old school cereal back. General Mills' Trix cereal will once again be made with artificial dyes and flavors.

Speaker 37 The classic Trix cereal.

Speaker 32 And Mars, big candy company Mars, it does some consumer analysis.

Speaker 17 And basically its conclusion from looking at and talking to consumers is that people in the EU were much more willing and actually wanted to have artificial colors taken out of their candy there, while people in the U.S.

Speaker 39 were like, do not touch my MMs.

Speaker 2 Right. Don't mute my reds.
Don't make me

Speaker 19 take away my blue MMs, you know, without a doubt.

Speaker 37 And so they reached a conclusion that after doing this research, they weren't going to touch MMs and other, you know, bright treats and candies that Americans wanted to have remain the same.

Speaker 2 It sounds like taking the dyes out of food, according to the companies, would probably reduce their sales. Companies say, we've tried this, it didn't work.

Speaker 45 Generally speaking, yes.

Speaker 2 What's the conclusion that the companies draw about why Americans are, you know, less into the natural muted look of food?

Speaker 32 There's a whole ton of like sort of food science around colors and how people interpret them.

Speaker 18 You know,

Speaker 54 there's a saying that, you know, we eat with our eyes. Sure.
When you see a bright colored chip or a bright colored candy, your mind is telling sort of your palate, this is going to taste strong.

Speaker 18 This is going to taste spicy.

Speaker 25 This is going to taste salty.

Speaker 18 You know, you have already in your head what that's going to taste like before you put it in your mouth.

Speaker 13 And I think so American food companies are trying to figure figure out where that balance is because they've got decades of background and research that say bright colors sell.

Speaker 39 And sales are just one part of the concern inside these companies.

Speaker 24 The other part of the concern is expenses.

Speaker 39 You know, the long and short of it is moving away from artificial colors, which are really inexpensive.

Speaker 15 That is going to drive the costs up for the company.

Speaker 14 You know, and then one of the biggest issues for food companies right now is matching those colors.

Speaker 54 You know, what we've created in America using artificial colors is a palette of colors that just don't exist in nature.

Speaker 56 Blue, oh, really tough for food manufacturers, you know, a blueberry, which everybody's like, oh, we've got blueberries.

Speaker 44 When you squish a blueberry, it's red.

Speaker 50 It's not blue.

Speaker 9 Wow.

Speaker 27 Even greens, you're like, oh, we've got kale, we've got spinach.

Speaker 44 Yes, there are greens that occur in nature, but those greens are very tricky to deal with. They degrade very, very, very quickly, very easily.

Speaker 18 One of the issues with natural colors is they're very sensitive to heat and light.

Speaker 44 Think of your Gatorade in a clear bottle.

Speaker 14 One of my kids loves the blue Gatorade in a clear bottle.

Speaker 47 If you switch to natural colors, you may have to, one, switch your packaging.

Speaker 18 You know, you may not be able to have a clear bottle because now you're going to expose that natural color to light.

Speaker 8 The greens or the blues may separate.

Speaker 18 So when you pick that off the shelf, maybe the top of it is clear, but the bottom is where you've got your color sentiment now.

Speaker 30 Uh-oh.

Speaker 36 And then on top of that, it also is going to change your manufacturing processes for these companies.

Speaker 14 You know, artificial dyes can sit in tanks for weeks, years, who knows?

Speaker 52 You know, they're fine.

Speaker 18 But when you start to deal with natural colors, now you may have to refrigerate that.

Speaker 52 And in order to achieve anything close to the colors that we've sort of achieved with artificial colors, you may have to use 10 times the amount of carrot juice or beet juice to get the colors that you want.

Speaker 14 You may have to reformulate your lucky charms or your fruit loops in terms of just the actual ingredients if you start to add these different colors to it.

Speaker 2 This is just much more complex than I think I could have possibly imagined before you just laid that out.

Speaker 2 And I have to say, I am personally disturbed and saddened to learn that a cool blue Gatorade doesn't occur naturally in our world.

Speaker 2 It sounds like companies also don't want to do it because they say it also increases our costs. So, there's this like one-two punch, fewer sales, higher costs.

Speaker 9 Right.

Speaker 18 And all of this is coming at a really tough time for big food.

Speaker 54 Almost across the board, you've seen volumes of their cookies and their chips decline.

Speaker 8 I think after about two years of food inflation, you know, there's a lot of Americans that are just either buying less of what they were buying before from these big food brands, or in some cases, they're increasingly trading down to private label store brands, you know, what the less expensive versions of those foods.

Speaker 8 You know, on top of that, we also are seeing the fallout.

Speaker 15 I think it's still early, but everybody's watching the rise of these weight loss drugs, you know, your Zempex, your GLP1s, and there's lots of research behind that that says when Americans or people go onto those drugs, they definitely eat less of these processed foods.

Speaker 14 Wow.

Speaker 52 And so food companies are looking at these big changes around their ingredients at a time when they're just also seeing sales and volumes of their foods falling off.

Speaker 2 Okay, so these are the forces that RFK Jr. is contending with when he comes into office.

Speaker 2 This powerful food industry with little incentive to change, a regulatory environment that gives companies quite a bit of power.

Speaker 2 So how is it that Kennedy, less than a year in office, has been able to actually effectively fight these forces?

Speaker 23 To go after big food, you know, he sort of knew he couldn't use the usual playbook, right? Regulation, right?

Speaker 50 Creating a rule, having everybody weigh in on it, including food companies and lobbyists.

Speaker 37 It would have gone down in sort of a big battle of my science versus your science, likely would have ended up in court.

Speaker 43 He'd be gone.

Speaker 51 No change would happen.

Speaker 12 So in order to really get change to occur here, he decided to take a very novel approach.

Speaker 2 We'll be right back.

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Speaker 2 Julie, before the break, you said that RFK Jr. had come up with this novel approach to get food companies to finally eliminate artificial food dyes from their products.
Tell me about that strategy.

Speaker 18 So what he did was take much more of sort of a peer pressure approach to regulation on artificial dyes.

Speaker 18 In April, he puts out an announcement basically saying that we're going to be banning certain dyes, popular dyes that are widely used in the American food system.

Speaker 22 And he holds this press conference.

Speaker 4 Let's join me in welcoming a warrior for America's children, RFK Junior.

Speaker 9 You know, when Kennedy comes up on stage, I was talking with my staff about these petroleum-based dyes, and I said, if they want to eat petroleum, they ought to add it themselves at home.

Speaker 48 If they shouldn't be feeding it to the rest of us,

Speaker 18 and he and other healthcare leaders on stage lay out the plan to get artificial dyes out of our food system.

Speaker 48 And I want to commend the food companies for working with us. to achieve this agreement or this settlement.

Speaker 11 You know, they say they've got all these companies on board, but what's missing, you know, who's not there are any food companies.

Speaker 2 And is that weird?

Speaker 12 It's really weird.

Speaker 18 You know, this is a big announcement, and it's normally something that you would have, you know, a few company executives up there smiling for the cameras and shaking hands and showing that they're on board with this scene.

Speaker 63 Today, we're going to take some questions from the press.

Speaker 33 You know, you actually see a reporter and there's reporters that notice that there's no food companies that are there and they ask Kennedy.

Speaker 63 You mentioned the goal is to work with the food industry to get most of the major synthetic food dyes out.

Speaker 34 You know, like, are the food companies really okay with this?

Speaker 15 What sort of agreement do you have?

Speaker 63 What is the plan if the food industry does not voluntarily agree to do that? And what are the next steps if you can't get agreement within the industry?

Speaker 14 Thank you.

Speaker 48 Well, here the industry has voluntarily agreed.

Speaker 10 And basically, he says, yeah, we have this understanding.

Speaker 50 It's happening.

Speaker 48 We are going to work with the industry. They've shown a lot of leadership on this.

Speaker 2 He says they are on board.

Speaker 37 Yes.

Speaker 9 And are they?

Speaker 53 Not really.

Speaker 26 No.

Speaker 18 What's happening behind the scenes, I spoke with a person close to the administration shortly after the announcement, and basically what they had was a soft agreement from one company.

Speaker 2 Wow, a soft agreement from one company is not everyone is lined up behind this. So did RFK Jr.

Speaker 9 just bluff?

Speaker 45 He did. He bluffed.

Speaker 18 And what he hoped was or was sort of banking on was that this one company in the industry, they would not say who it was, but that they expected an announcement to be made within a couple of weeks at the press conference and that that would be the beginning of sort of the whole industry toppling over.

Speaker 2 And it seems like his bet on that domino effect happening actually paid off. How did that exactly go down?

Speaker 12 It starts with PepsiCo, which makes Doritos and Cheetos and all these popular snacks.

Speaker 24 And the executives mention that they're going to start to move a number of their chips.

Speaker 54 Lay's chips are going to have no artificial colors in them by the end of this year.

Speaker 27 And then you get to like June, and Kraft Heinz comes out and they say, We are going to be rid of artificial dyes in our foods and beverages and whatever by the end of 2027.

Speaker 36 Even more recently, you know, the cascade and the domino effect is happening.

Speaker 13 More companies, you know, Nestle, General Mills, Smuckers, WK Kellogg, which is Fruit Loops, which is these cereals that says it too will be out of artificial colors in its foods and cereals and products by the end of 2027.

Speaker 2 I'm just struck by the avalanche, the cascade you described of announcements of these food companies saying we are willing to change.

Speaker 2 Why? Why are they doing this if the thing they're responding to is really just soft power on the part of RFK Jr.?

Speaker 22 It's soft power, but it's power.

Speaker 8 And I think this administration, more so than past administrations, causes a lot of fear, right?

Speaker 51 You've seen where if they don't like something you're doing, they can come down and they can make your life really, really hard.

Speaker 18 And I think there's an element of the food industry saying, okay,

Speaker 27 artificial dies.

Speaker 10 We don't like it.

Speaker 36 It's going to cost us money.

Speaker 34 And maybe we will, maybe we won't change.

Speaker 28 We'll see how that plays out.

Speaker 46 But if it makes them happy, we say we're going to change it.

Speaker 31 And hopefully they leave us alone because there's other like sort of like big game here or bigger issues, right?

Speaker 56 If this administration comes out and says less sugar, less fat, less salt, that will really throw this industry into, you know, a downward spiral.

Speaker 2 That's even harder than dyes to remove from this stuff.

Speaker 27 Much more difficult.

Speaker 25 It would absolutely impact sales.

Speaker 52 You know, so, so there's a little bit of an element here of, I think, like pacify this administration, give them a win, and hope that you can fly below the radar for the next few years in a big way.

Speaker 2 To your point, though, I have to imagine that one pitfall of this strategy is that There are no new regulations here, obviously. RFK Jr.

Speaker 2 is just relying on his own persuasive power, or perhaps the company's not wanting to get on the wrong side of the Trump administration. But that means this push doesn't actually have any real teeth.

Speaker 18 That's right.

Speaker 44 And definitely, skeptics or critics will note this industry said and looked into making these changes a decade ago, and many of them didn't.

Speaker 50 Right.

Speaker 54 You know, so there's definitely a group of people that worry that we could get to the end of 2027 and most of our major food and beverages and snacks still contain artificial colors.

Speaker 10 But that's where for the industry though, there's another aspect of this,

Speaker 22 which is the emerging state laws that could actually be a bigger problem for them.

Speaker 2 What are those state laws? Tell me about that.

Speaker 19 So you've had a number of states, including California, Texas, West Virginia, that are actually creating laws around artificial colors that are much more stringent, that are actual, you know, in some cases, bans.

Speaker 18 In other cases, Texas wants warning labels.

Speaker 12 They're creating a set of rules for the food industry that's going to cause it significant problems because, you know, the industry is very much worried about a patchwork quilt of rules, as they like to say.

Speaker 18 If you are M ⁇ M Mars, now if you're making your candy and you're selling it in Texas, you're going to have to have a warning label, but not in New Mexico.

Speaker 11 You know, it's really difficult and confusing confusing for them.

Speaker 15 But those are actual rules that could create more change than this administration can with this voluntary movement.

Speaker 2 The fact that it's Texas and like West Virginia that's doing this, adding regulations on this stuff, is

Speaker 2 surprising. I mean, those are red states, not places that I would necessarily expect to be leading the pack on food regulation.

Speaker 26 Right.

Speaker 32 I mean, obviously you have California, you know, a much more liberal, left-leaning state, which has been ahead of all of this.

Speaker 14 But it also shows, I think, the power, the political power of the Maha movement, that you have Texas, that you have West Virginia, you know, sort of these deep red states that are basically saying, we're going to regulate artificial dyes in a way that the federal government is not doing.

Speaker 2 I want to step back here for a minute and just ask what you think RFK is really up to

Speaker 2 here.

Speaker 2 I think it's clear he's trying to bypass the bureaucracy, force companies with the soft power to make these pretty radical changes to the way our food looks.

Speaker 2 But even if he does succeed,

Speaker 2 if you make fruit loops less colorful, less neon,

Speaker 2 maybe you on the margins do some good if the research is right.

Speaker 2 But are you fundamentally changing the big health issues that he and other people care about?

Speaker 54 So if you talk to nutritionists, you know, or health experts, you know, they're sort of one of their biggest criticism of going after food dyes.

Speaker 10 There's a little bit of a so whatism here, right? There's really no studies that say food dyes equals obesity, food dyes equals diabetes, right?

Speaker 21 So they're sort of like, great, fine, you get that out of the system, but it's not really attacking your core mission statement, which is that chronic disease.

Speaker 42 But then there's another

Speaker 53 sort of line of thinking around all of this is whether in making these foods and snacks and drinks less pretty, less bright, are you in a roundabout way tackling the bigger issue, which is the chronic disease, which is the obesity, which is the diabetes.

Speaker 15 And especially when we're talking about children, if children who were drawn to brightly colored cereals and consuming boxes of them, you know, now eat less or eat smaller portion sizes of them, are you now tackling the bigger issue around sugar, salt, saturated fat, portion control?

Speaker 21 You know, we're really talking about retraining America, retraining the American mindset, the connection between our eyes and our palate.

Speaker 56 And, you know, if we say, I don't want this, I'm going to eat less of this, that could be a win.

Speaker 36 That could absolutely be a win in terms of our overall intake of ultra-processed foods.

Speaker 9 Julie, thank you.

Speaker 2 We really appreciate your time.

Speaker 42 Thanks for having me.

Speaker 61 This podcast is supported by Comedy Central's The Daily Show, which is finally back with brand new episodes.

Speaker 61 With Ronnie Chang, Josh Johnson, Jordan Clepper, Michael Costa, Desi Leidick, and every Monday, Jon Stewart, it's the most hosted show in late night.

Speaker 61 And it's a good thing, too, because in these uncertain times, one thing is for certain. This much news needs this many hosts.

Speaker 61 Comedy Central's The Daily Show, new weeknights at 11 on Comedy Central, and streaming next day on Paramount Plus.

Speaker 2 Here's what else you need to know today. On Sunday afternoon, President Trump announced that the U.S.

Speaker 2 and the European Union had reached a trade deal, setting a 15% tariff on most goods, including cars.

Speaker 2 The agreement is in line with a deal that Trump recently reached with Japan, and it brought an end to months of tense negotiations with some of America's closest allies and trading partners.

Speaker 2 But the new rate was a big increase from tariffs that had previously been in place and was much higher than Europe had been pushing for.

Speaker 2 And Israel said that it paused military activity in parts of Gaza on Sunday to allow international aid in as outrage grows over the severe hunger facing Palestinians in the enclave.

Speaker 2 Israeli forces suspended operations in at least three areas of Gaza and plan to designate secure routes for the United Nations to deliver aid, according to the Israeli military.

Speaker 2 The UN says more than one in three people in Gaza has not been eating for multiple days in a row.

Speaker 2 And according to Gaza's health ministry, more than 50 Palestinians have died this month from starvation.

Speaker 2 Today's episode was produced by Ricky Nowetsky, Shannon Lin, Rob Zipko, and Caitlin O'Keefe. It was edited by Liz O'Balin, Patricia Willens, and Lisa Chow.

Speaker 2 Fact-checked by Susan Lee. Contains original music by Marion Lozano, Dan Powell, and Diane Wong.
and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly.

Speaker 2 That's it for the daily. I'm Natalie Kitrowa.
See you tomorrow.