NATURAL COLORS
Nature's Palette
Innovation technologies and new formulation techniques are expanding the range of natural colors available to beverage manufacturers.
By Heather Landi
Published January 2010 in Beverage World; page 44
As the natural ingredient trend has grown steadily throughout the beverage marke
t, natural colors, or those derived from natural colors or those derived from natural sources, have been growing in demand as well. The “clean” label trend is the primary driver of this movement, as well as a consumer shift to healthier beverages and the perceived health benefits of non-synthetic ingredients.
In 2008, the British Food Standards Agency (FSX) urged UK food manufacturers to phase out six synthetic colors due to the findings of a study that concluded the synthetic colors could aggravate the hyperactivity in children. The demand of natural colors is projected to grow 4.3 percent per year to $193 million by 2012.
At the same time, improved technological performance and more affordability have made natural colors, which are derived from vegetables, fruits, minerals and animals, a more viable option for beverage developers.
“Synthetic colors are generally speaking, more stable in formulation and more economical than non-synthetic. However, this gap in recent years has narrowed thanks to blend technology and this movement toward making more water-dispersible natural colors available,” Campbell Barnum, vice president of marketing, D.D. Williamson, says.
Many suppliers now offer colors based on natural sources that can be used as alternatives to the six FD&C synthetic colors, while offering beverage manufacturers the advantage of having the “natural” label on their product. The most common types of natural color used in beverages include anthocyanins extracted from elderberry, purple carrot, red cabbage and purple sweet potato (for shades of pink to red to violet), carotenoids, which includes beta carotene (yellow to red-orange hues, cochineal (pink to purple shades) and turmeric (bright yellow).