What's in artificial food coloring?

I called the 800 number on the Beef taco Lunchable box today after noticing the cheese contained "artificial coloring". I know, it's "preservative city" in there so I shouldn't even buy that stuff. But since I don't let Ben buy most of the school lunches, sometimes I let him pack a Lunchable. We throw out the red candy that comes with it. I asked the representative for details about what the artificial color was. She left me on hold and came back after a few minutes to say she did not have that information. She asked why I was interested and I explained my kids react to the synthetic, petroleum based dyes like red #40. She assured me that by law the dyes with numbers (red # 40, yellow # 5 and 6, blue #1) must be disclosed on food labeling, so it wasn't that. However, she said since it was not any of those, she had no further information about it and no way that I could find out.

Hmmm. Sounds like yet another example of a company putting extra junk in the food, probably cheaper chemical stuff, that we don't need. I've bought those Lunchables for a while and never noticed that ingredient. I wonder if it's a new thing, or if it's always been in there. Once again, why does cheese need fake color added? Sigh.