Over the past decade, naturalness has transitioned from a niche market to an up-and-comer to a mainstream expectation in the food and beverage industry. Today, natural ingredients permeate every aisle of the grocery store and every item on many menus.
Sensient Consumer Research 2023
Fortunately, the world of natural colors is bright and wide, with new innovations joining the mix all the time.
Click on each tile to dive into beverage color solutions:
From tropical citrus to seasonal pumpkin, orange flavors make up the largest segment of the beverage category besides red (Mintel 2024). It’s important for beverage developers to have a strong, stable go-to orange solution.
FD&C Yellow 6 offers a brilliant orange hue but doesn’t meet the “natural ingredients” directive many brands have instituted. On the natural side, Beta Carotenes are excellent orange options, but depending on the hue they may require high usage levels to achieve bold, eye-catching oranges. Additionally, a Beta Carotene may impart a cloudy orange hue to a beverage, which may not be the desired outcome.
A combination of a beta carotene and a natural red solution to achieve a bright orange target shade is more complex than a single component solution due to the differences in stability and performance from the two separate sources.
Paprika is an excellent natural bright orange solution, but standard paprika carries strong flavor off-notes that impact the profile of the finished beverage, especially at high usage rates.
The combination of two key Sensient technologies—Pure-S™ and AET™—creates a vibrant clear orange hue without flavor off-notes.
Pure-S™ is a gentle purification technology that mitigates flavor off-notes found in color sources like paprika.
AET™ is Sensient’s Advanced Emulsion Technology™, enabling the use of oil-soluble colors in water-based systems by stabilizing the emulsions.
Developers may find other paprika-based emulsions on the market, but unlike Pure-S™ Orange these are likely to impart undesirable flavor off-notes in application, especially when used at high usage rates to achieve bold orange shades.
Pure-S™ Orange is also pH stable, so it will offer the same hue regardless of the acidity of the beverage system. It also has improved stability in the presence of Vitamin C (ascorbic acid), making it a great natural color for juice-based beverages or any beverages or concentrates with high Vitamin C content.
The bold, clear orange hue from Pure-S™ Orange is perfect for beverage applications across the board, from ready-to-drink formulas to beverage concentrates and syrups. If you are looking for a bright highly stable orange for beverages, this is the solution for you!
