Replacing Carmine Naturally Across Food And Beverages
Carmine Natural
Coloring
Carmine has historically been utilized to create vibrant red to purple shades in food and beverages. The history of cochineal and carmine traces back to ancient times for good reason: the enduring presence of this vibrant crimson natural color serves as a testament to its remarkable effectiveness.
Cochineal (Dactylopius coccus) are stationary scale insects that originate from the tropical and subtropical regions of South America, especially Peru and to a lesser degree Mexico or Arizona. The cochineal inhabits the pads of prickly pear cacti, where they nourish themselves by consuming the plant’s moisture and nutrients.
Carmic Acid
The water-soluable extract from the cochineal
Carmine
An aluminium lake of carminic acid
Carminic Acid and Carmine are great natural colorants used across foods and beverages. They offer remarkable stability against heat, light, and acidity, providing a variety of shades from studding pink and vibrant reds to oranges and lavenders.
Although both can be casually referred to as carmine for color purposes, carminic acid provides an orange shade typically working well in low pH applications. On the other hand, carmine gives a very bright red shade with good light and heat stability, with some limitations in acidic food and beverage applications.
Limitations of Carmine Coloring
Consumer demand, concerns about Kosher status, and supply chain challenges contributing to cost fluctuations have caused manufacturers to look for carmine-free alternatives in their product development projects.
Although carmine offers a highly stable alternative to FD&C Red 3, brands may be concerned about consumer sentiment around “color from bugs”.
24% of US consumers prioritize the environmental impact of ingredients when making purchasing decisions, and carmine is not considered vegan (Mintel 2025).
81% of US consumers consider ingredient lists important when making purchasing decisions (Mintel 2025). 39% of new products launched in the past five years have a Kosher claim (Mintel 2025).
Increasing global demand for Carmine coloring combined with high volatility of raw material costs cause carmine market pricing to fluctuate strongly making it harder for product developers to consider for their product recipe costing.
Carmine is a natural coloring known for its longstanding usage, but also for significant market price fluctuation. The harvesting of cochineal is heavily influenced by weather conditions and various other factors, along with the fact that it is only cultivated in a limited number of regions worldwide.
Our Sensient Food Colors Peru location enables us to participate earlier in the process flow of color from cochineal, so we are able to provide customers a full portfolio of effective carmine and cochineal options.
Furthermore, Sensient’s Agronomy team equips our partner farmers with the tools necessary to cultivate a steady supply of cochineal at fair market pricing. Yet the challenge remains that the inherent market price volatility of Carmine can pose a considerable challenge for manufacturers in terms of forecasting and budgeting.
Technical Support in
Replacing Carmine
With bright, stable shades available, innovation can be endless and cost-effective with Sensient’s portfolio of vertically integrated cochineal and carmine options. Choosing the appropriate vegetarian and vegan alternative red shades demands careful consideration and expertise as formulators need to consider various factors when creating carmine-free products. In applications like confectionery, baked goods, or alcoholic beverages Carmine would show excellent light and heat stability and is able to resist migrating or bleeding in the final application.
Any replacement will have to
portray similar benefits.
The most common alternatives to carmine are food colorings derived from natural sources such as anthocyanins and beet juice.
However, standard beet juice would show limited heat stability. In high water activity applications, its stability is also somewhat limited, making it unsuitable for products like ready-to-drink beverages, gummy candies, and hard-boiled sweets. Products that utilize anthocyanins can provide a vibrant and appealing hue in acidic applications, including beverages, fruit-flavored gummies, and hard candies. Because anthocyanins are influenced by pH levels, the colors and stability characteristics can differ among various raw materials. Therefore, it is essential to have expert knowledge when selecting the right product solution.
Sensient’s Vegan Coloring Foods & Natural Colors
Sensient’s portfolio of natural red options allows you to achieve vibrant red shades without using carmine. This high-performing range of Natural Reds is particularly advantageous for producers of confectionery, sugar coatings, chocolate decorations, dairy products, fruit preparations, ice cream, frozen novelties, and desserts.
Explore some of our suggestions for replacing carmine in your next food or drink applications as below. With our decades of experience in carmine replacement projects, we are happy to support formulators with natural coloring solutions tailored to customers’ needs in any food, beverage or petfood application.
Liquors, Premixed Cocktails
and Low-Alcoholic Drinks
Red and pink shades bring to mind delicious profiles from the adventurous: spicy guava, to florals: hibiscus, or to classics: daiquiri, cosmopolitan.
There are several solutions available to achieve reds and pinks in seltzers, liquors, wines, and other alcoholic beverages. Anthocyanins are stable at low pH levels and offer beautiful pinks and reds in lower alcoholic applications like seltzers or cocktails.
Energy Drinks and other
Non-Alcoholic Drinks
One of the most cost-effective anthocyanins in beverage applications, Black Carrot adds classic red hues to the rainbow. More options with blue tints are available. If you are looking for pink solutions, black carrot or other sources like purple sweet potato can equally be very good fit.
Baked or Extruded Snacks
Coloring the base of a baked or extruded snack with natural coloring requires solutions with excellent heat stability. Discover Sensient’s Uberbeet™ solutions offering deep, bold reds that are able to withstand the heating process.
Pan Coated Confectionery
Creating dark, intense pink to purple shades in panning processes Sensient’s Uberbeet™ platform in combination with other high performing orange or yellow colorants are a perfect, and formulators can reach any desired shade naturally.
Sweet Bakery Goods
Working on eye-catching red velvet cakes or delicious red to pink cookies? Standard natural red coloring solutions, like those based on anthocyanin, for example, will shift from red to purple as a result of the rising pH during the heating step. Sensient’s Uberbeet™ here allows developers to achieve vibrant pink-to-red in baked, fried, panned or extruded goods.
