Alison Donaldson, technical sales manager at EXBERRY® by GNT, explains how colours made from fruits, vegetables, and plants can be used to achieve a broad spectrum of vibrant shades in soft and alcoholic beverages.
The colour of a beverage plays a crucial role in shaping the consumer experience. It can instantly shape perceptions without conscious thought, creating flavour expectations and helping to define product identity.
In today’s market, though, the choice of colouring ingredient can be every bit as important. Between 2019 and 2023, 71% of colours used in soft and alcoholic beverage launches in South Africa were artificial. However, there is now growing momentum towards natural alternatives in line with rapidly evolving consumer demands.
Shift to plant-based colours
Europe has already significantly reduced the use of artificial colours, featuring in only 1% of food and beverage launches in the region between 2018 and 2023. In North America, 7% contained artificial colours over the same period compared to 11% for natural colouring solutions. Even for beverage launches in South Africa, natural colours had a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25.6% between 2019 and 2023 – outpacing the 18.5% for artificial colours.
EXBERRY can provide the ideal alternative to artificial colours. Created from non-GMO fruits, vegetables, and plants, our plant-based portfolio can be used to deliver a broad spectrum of bright, stable shades in beverages. Crucially, switching to plant-based colours also allows brands to build consumer confidence by using ingredients they can trust.
As plant-based colours rely on natural pigments, though, various factors need to be considered to achieve optimal results. These include the pH value, processing conditions, ingredient interactions, packaging, and storage conditions. By working with a knowledgeable supplier, it is possible to achieve excellent results in the vast majority of applications.
Blues, greens and violets
When you combine Spirulina with other plant-based colours, it can also be used to achieve navy blue, green, and violet hues. Spirulina colour concentrates, which can be labelled as “spirulina concentrate” in South Africa, have been used in foods such as confectionery and dairy for decades. However, achieving effective results in beverages has been challenging in the past due to spirulina’s sensitivity to acid and temperature.
GNT’s EXBERRY® Blue Beverage Solution is a patented formulation technology that stabilises the pigment’s protein structure in acidified beverages. This means it can also now be used in sports, energy, and carbonated drinks, enhanced waters, and alcoholic beverages below 20% alcohol by volume (ABV), opening the door to a new world of product innovation.
Pinks and purples
A variety of fruit and vegetable concentrates allow manufacturers to achieve a bright spectrum from soft pinks to deep purples, all while being water-soluble and heat-stable. These include red potatoes, purple sweet potatoes, black and purple carrots, blueberries and blackcurrants. These raw materials contain anthocyanin pigments, which are influenced by pH but have excellent heat stability. Red potato, for example, can provide a replacement for Allura Red AC at levels between pH 2 and 3.5, where it delivers a bright, yellowish-red hue.
Purple sweet potato concentrates can provide stunning pink hues at low pH levels while black and purple carrots can deliver deep red to reddish-purple hues. Beetroot concentrates, meanwhile, are pH-independent and can provide a good option for ready-to-mix powder beverages, such as high-pH protein powders where strawberry pink hues are desired.
Yellows and oranges
Carotenoids provide the best natural yellow and orange hues for most beverage applications. These pigments are derived from vegetables like carrots or saltwater algae. Stabilised forms of carotenoid-based colours, such as carotene emulsions or stabilised carrot concentrate, allow for vibrant hues with optimal stability performance. Carrot juice concentrates provide advantages from a labelling perspective as they can be declared as “carrot concentrate”.
Turmeric concentrates, which contain curcumin pigments, can also deliver a bright yellow hue and are listed as “turmeric concentrate” in South Africa. However, they are light-sensitive so are best suited to products with opaque packaging, such as canned beverages and ready-to-mix powder systems.
Using colour to connect with consumers
Colours made from fruits, vegetables, and plants can now provide a comprehensive array of solutions to support requirements on shade, cost-in-use, stability performance, and labelling. Beverage companies can also share stories about how their plant-based colours are created, focusing on how the raw materials are grown and how they are manufactured. They might even use logos on the front of the bottle to showcase that their drink has been “coloured with fruits and vegetables.” Combining visual appeal with natural ingredient declarations, our EXBERRY® portfolio can be used to craft products that perfectly match with modern consumer expectations.
