• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, February 11, 2014

Kraft Singles is the latest major food brand to announce formulation changes in response to consumers' growing discomfort with chemicals and insistence on "natural" ingredients.

The cheese brand announced that it has removed the artificial preservative sorbic acid from its two largest-selling varieties -- its full-fat American and White American varieties -- and replaced it with natamycin, a natural mold inhibitor.

Sorbic acid is FDA-approved, but that designation seems increasingly less important to consumers. At the same time, being able to promote fewer or no artificial ingredients is becoming increasingly crucial to food and beverage brands.

Just last week, Subway announced that it's removing the chemical azodiacarbonamide from its sandwich breads. That substance is used to enable elasticity in materials including shoe rubber and yoga mats -- as well as in many food products, including some bread doughs used by Subway, McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Chick-fil-A and other QSRs. 

Azodiacarbonamide is FDA-approved, but it's banned in the U.K., Europe and Australia. 

In addition, early last month, natural ingredients proponents claimed another big victory when General Mills announced that regular Cheerios have been converted to a formula that contains no genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Kraft Singles parent Kraft Foods Group told Associated Press that it will launch TV ads late this month promoting that the full-fat American and White American lines are now free of artificial preservatives.

Also, those products' packages are now featuring a message promoting that they have no artificial flavors or preservatives — although the artificial flavors were removed years ago.

Kraft said it's testing the removal of artificial preservatives from Singles' other full-fat varieties and its 2% milk and fat-free varieties.