Manufacturers should voluntarily remove six artificial food colourings from their products, the board of the Food Standards Agency (FSA) recommended today.

The FSA wants the E numbers to be removed from food products because of an "accumulating body of evidence" that they are associated with child hyperactivity.

At a meeting in London, the board agreed that colourings in food and drinks should be mandatory phased out in the EU, but that UK manufacturers should voluntarily remove the additives by 2009.

UK ministers will now consider the recommendation but the final decision will be made at EU level.

The board's chairwoman, Dame Deirdre Hutton, concluded: "If one puts consumers first, which is our duty, we must recognise that these colours are not necessary and it would be sensible to have them removed from all foods."

In a study for the FSA, researchers at Southampton University looked at the effect of food colouring on behaviour.

Professor Jim Stevenson, who carried out the research, said he believed the effect of the additives posed a threat to psychological health.

More research has been carried out on the preservative sodium benzoate used in many fizzy drinks.

In a paper to the board, officials said discussions with British companies suggested they would be able to introduce satisfactory alternative ingredients by the end of this year.

However, they said some products where alternatives had been difficult to find, such as canned and mushy peas, Battenberg and angel cakes, Turkish delight and tinned strawberries, "might be lost to the market temporarily or even permanently".

The paper said some consumers would be disappointed by changes in the colour of their food but many others would be content that action had been taken to protect them.

The colourings involved are sunset yellow (E110), quinoline yellow (E104), carmoisine (E122), allura red (E129), tartrazine (E102) and ponceau 4R (E124).

In the wake of the Southampton University research, published in September, the FSA advised that cutting the six colourings from the diet of hyperactive children might improve behaviour.

It later pledged to make its advice more meaningful to consumers and call on the food industry to reduce its use of additives.

In March, Europe's food safety watchdog dismissed the study as too inconclusive to justify updating advice for parents.

The European Food Safety Authority said the results "provided limited evidence that the mixtures of additives tested had a small effect on the activity and function of some children".

The FSA said the Southampton study was of "the highest scientific quality".