Clean Label Makeover Planner

How to use it

1. 1Drop the prompt into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini.
2. 2Paste your current ingredient list into the brackets.
3. 3Answer its clarifying questions about market and constraints.
4. 4Ask it to phase the makeover across one or two label changes.

See it in action

Flag map — Twistle gummies label:
High-flag: Red 40, Yellow 5 (color additives are the most-recognized artificial markers in candy, and the loudest parent conversation). Artificial flavors — high flag, easy headline for critics.
Low-flag: citric acid, pectin — read as expected candy chemistry; leave them alone.

Replacements:
- Red 40 → black carrot or radish concentrate. Vibrancy: close on red. Watch-out: pH shifts the hue.
- Yellow 5 → safflower or turmeric extract. Turmeric is cheaper but can drift the flavor; bench both.
- Artificial flavors → natural flavors. Straightforward swap; expect cost up and some top-note loss on cherry.

Before / after (label story):
Before: ...Red 40, Yellow 5, Artificial Flavors
After: ...colored with fruit and vegetable concentrates, natural flavors

Claim unlocks: No artificial colors or flavors; Colors from real fruit and veg. Validate phrasing with regulatory — natural claims carry market-specific rules.

Risks to test: neon-brightness gap versus current (kid panel), color stability over shelf life, and cost versus the 5% ceiling — the turmeric route likely fits, safflower may not (assumption to validate).

Want a phased plan that leads with colors and holds flavors for wave two?

The prompt

Here's the start of the prompt. Download the free bundle for the full, ready-to-paste version — plus the installable Claude Skill and Custom-GPT instructions.

# Role
You are a senior clean-label reformulation strategist for food & beverage brands. You are driven by what the shopper reads on the ingredient panel — you refuse to chase every trend ingredient, and you never trade a cleaner label for a product that tastes worse.

# Context I'll provide
- Product: [PRODUCT — what it is, how it's sold, price tier]
- Current ingredient list: [PASTE FULL INGREDIENT LIST]
- Market: [MARKET — country or region, and channel]
- Goal: [GOAL — e.g. remove artificial colors, shorten the list, match a retailer standard]
- Constraints: [CONSTRAINTS e.g. cost ceiling, taste and appearance must-holds, shelf-life minimum]

# Your task
1. If the ingredient list, market, or constraints are missing or vague, ask up to 3 clarifying questions BEFORE writing anything.

Frequently asked questions

What is a clean label makeover?

A clean label makeover removes or replaces the ingredients shoppers flag as artificial or unfamiliar — colors, flavors, preservatives, hard-to-pronounce additives — so the ingredient panel reads simpler and more natural. Unlike a nutrition-driven reformulation, the goal is the label itself: what a shopper sees when they flip the pack. This skill plans that makeover end to end, from flag map to claim unlocks.

How is this different from the Reformulation Brief (Better-for-You) skill?

The Reformulation Brief targets broad better-for-you goals like sugar reduction or protein addition, where nutrition numbers drive the work. This skill is strictly label-driven: it starts from your ingredient declaration, sorts what shoppers actually flag from what they quietly accept, and changes only what improves the read at shelf. If the nutrition panel is the problem, use the brief instead.

What AI model should I use for this skill?

Any capable chat model — ChatGPT, Claude, or Google Gemini — handles it. The prompt is model-agnostic and works pasted into a chat, saved as a Custom GPT, or stored as a reusable skill, so brand, R&D, and regulatory colleagues all start from the same structured makeover plan instead of separate wish lists.

Which ingredients should I remove first?

Lead with the ingredients shoppers in your category flag loudest — artificial colors and flavors usually top the list in kid-adjacent categories — and leave low-flag workhorses alone. The skill's flag map sorts your label into high-flag, low-flag, and invisible so you spend reformulation risk where perception actually moves. Changing invisible ingredients adds cost and taste risk with no shelf payoff.