Consistent and Sustainable Natural Colour in Products: some practical

considerations

Cheryl Walker

Analytical Development Technologist

Britvic Soft Drinks Plc

Scope

• Why natural colours?

• What are they?

• Is natural sustainable ?

• What are the constraints?

• Overcoming those constraints

Introduction – Soft Drinks

• Soft Drinks - expanding product category now includes water enhancers

• Refreshing source of hydration

• Potential to improve nutrition in a pleasant, convenient way

• Responsibility to help consumers make infirmed choices

Why Natural Colours

• EU report 2013 - identified concern about additives in food as major issue – 85% of respondents to EFSA survey

• Industry response -85% new product launches are formulations containing natural colours or claiming no artificial colours

• Consumer led development

What are they?

• There is not a legal definition of a natural colour in Europe

• Colouring foods are concentrates which are non selectively extracted from fruit or vegetables traditionally consumed as foods

• Colours added to foods must be labelled as such, there is no distinction between colours of natural origin and synthetic pigments.

• Colours of natural origin are strongly coloured pigments that are extracted from natural materials

why add them?

• Not all fruits are strongly coloured

• Fruit loses colour as the result of processing

• Variability in colour of fruit

• Some blends do not have the colour expected

• Influence of colour on perceived flavour

Strongly coloured fruit

Fruit without colour added

Is Natural sustainable?

• World wide demand has grown spectacularly over past 10 years

• Limitations of suitable land

• Agricultural cycle -it takes about 4 years to ramp up supply to meet increases in demand.

• Applications for natural colours have increased to include all of food industry.

Sources and types

• Colouring foods – clearly defined – from food crops e.g. black carrot, fruit, spices

• Colours of natural origin - variety of sources

• Biotechnology

• algal colours

• Microbial fermentation

Constraints – Technical

• Natural colours start to destabilise once they are extracted

• Prone to oxidation

• Maillard reaction

• Light can cause browning or fading

• Colouring foods are non selective extracts of fruit, vegetables and plants

• Associated off flavours

Technical constraints

• Stability can be influenced by:

– Temperature

– Dissolved oxygen

– Interactions between ingredients- ascorbic acid and anthocyanins for example

• Water quality

• Packaging

• Residues and heavy metals

Remedies Formulation

• The main factor is oxidative damage – include antioxidants

• Poor miscibility - add emulsifiers

• Formation of haze – polysaccharides in an acidic environment form floc. Use clarified juices and liquid sugar

• Use the least amount of the colour that you can

• Use colouring foods of vegetable origin.

• Formulate with strongly coloured fruit juices

Remedies - Packaging

• Smart packaging - multilayer PET with oxygen scavengers

• Opaque packaging to filter out light

• Multiwall cartons – minimal headspace and light exposure, very good oxygen barriers.

• Cans

Remedies Processing

• HPP – avoids heat damage and protects flavours from degradation.

• Adjusting fill speed to minimise amount of aeration and the risk of fobbing and foaming

• Add the colours as late as possible when making syrup

• Adjust pasteurisation regimen

Composition & authenticity

• As the price of these raw materials increases and pressure on supply grows so food fraud becomes more of a risk.

• Lack of standardised extracts to bench mark against.

• Testing is more complex and it is not always easy to find a marker compound –paradox the more natural a material the more complex it is, and so the more difficult it is to analyse.

Remedies

• Good relations with your suppliers

• Specifications

• Benchmarking materials to create standards, and maintaining a library of these materials.

• Strong Supply Quality Assurance coupled with effective sampling plans.

• Trade Associations like BSDA – SGF schemes for fruit authenticity.

Possibilities

• Colours have developed from the limited range of shades and materials that used to be available.

• There is more knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of these materials

• Some of these colouring materials have nutritive properties or are associated with permitted health claims – functional ingredients

Summary

• The colours of natural origin, whether they are pigments extracted from plants, produced by biotechnology or are concentrates of strongly coloured foods which can present challenges to product developers.

• But they also help to address consumer concerns about additives.

• They sometimes have nutritive properties and so can enhance the nutritional content of products

Conclusion

• Provided natural colours are treated as the unique materials that they are in a formulation, the challenges they pose are easily overcome.

• Pigments of natural origin or colouring foodstuffs can both help satisfy consumer concerns about synthetic additives in food.

• Biotechnology may prove to be the answer to issues of sustainability and consistency.

Thank you for your attention – any questions?