Natural colors can impart beautiful hues and health benefits, but heat, light and pH can reduce vibrancy, however everything in Natural Food Colors starts from the point The main challenges switching to natural colors include stability and cost, and it is not as simple as a 1:1 replacement for artificial. 

Nowadays the very important thing that consumer concerns about the supposed health hazards of artificial ingredients have driven the clean label movement from a trend to an expectation. The profits of using natural food colors sometimes go outside their main function. Many of these natural fixings have inherent health benefits like powerful antioxidants, relaxation support and anti-inflammatory properties. However, realities like cost and shelf life need to be considered while also meeting consumer expectations for what a product should look or taste like when using these ingredients.

Customers are educated from an early age to believe color symbolizes flavor profile, cleanness and overall superiority of a product. For that reason, it’s important to reflect look and source of colorants to achieve the ideal experience for your target consumer.

In addition to revealing color, many of these ingredients have practical benefits. Spirulina, one of the most common natural color sources for blue or green, has essential amino acids and is rich with calcium, niacin, potassium, magnesium, B vitamins and iron. Beta-carotene, an antioxidant found in many vegetables, is used to create a red-orange color in products like flavored sparkling juice and Strawberry Krispies cereal.

Natural food colors offer many benefits, these types of ingredients can be defiant when formulating RTD beverages. Before clean label became usual, most beverages were colored artificially using synthetic colors to maintain color strength. As a result, bright, bold colors are something consumers have come to expect. Natural food colors are more delicate to pH as well as vanishing due to heat during processing and light; therefore, product developers must choose natural colors that will maintain intensity during treating and on the shelf. Notwithstanding these challenges, certain methods can shelter the integrity of the product when formulating with these colors, such as covering agents and wrapping with a UV barrier.

Knowing the target pH of a product can help inform what natural color will maintain the desired appearance through processing and shelf life. For example, reds anthocyanins at a certain pH will turn purple and get dark or muddy, so it’s important to choose a natural color that works within the beverage matrix.

The way a color in finished products looks may also depend on whether the source material is a powder or liquid. Powders, for example, can vary in color. Powders tend to have good-to-okay stability in terms of shade and hue butcan vary more than liquids due to the fact that it is a natural color. Since the source of the color has several variables, these factors can cause, for example, a blue color to be darker or lighter, but when put into solution would remain consistent in terms of the same color from different lots. By analogize, Liquid colors tend to be reliable in terms of shade and hue since the color is dispersed into a liquid media, which allows for a different color expression than that of powder.

Using a powder or liquid has different advantages and disadvantages. Powders, for example, can be used in most applications and have a longer shelf life and stability in storage, but liquids tend to be more versatile and easier to work with for measuring out and handling the material.