Natural Food Colours for Sweet Baked Goods
Ingredient Renovation in indulgent Categories
As consumers’ purchasing behaviour continues to shift towards “better-for-you” alternatives, innovation opportunities present themselves across all categories. Cakes and cupcakes are the perfect vehicle for “permissible indulgence”.
With smaller portion sizes offerings becoming the norm, all-natural ingredients help to ease consumers’ minds while satisfying their need for a sweet, momentous treat.
In fact, 61% of Chinese consumers preferred products with natural claims when purchasing desserts (Mintel 2019).
Visual Appeal Drives Initial Purchases
In Sensient’s large-scale consumer research study, products with brighter, more vibrant colour outscored muted/low-coloured products and lifted purchase intent by 5%. There are a few key reasons for this preference. First, according to Sensient’s research, brighter colours are associated with more flavour.
Secondly, today’s consumers are seek unique-looking and photogenic products to share across their social platforms. To date, more than 3 million Instagram posts are housed under the hashtag #cakesofinstagram, showcasing beautifully-designed works of pastry chefs, at home bakers, and even store-bought creations. Natural food colour can not only cater to modern demands for natural ingredients, but also can increase overall flavour perception and potentially purchase intent.
Did you know natural colours provide more hue options than synthetic colours? While the broad shade range is certainly a benefit, some unique challenges still exist when formulating with natural colours, such as heat stability for applications like cupcakes and cakes where there is a bake process. Fortunately, unique innovations by our technical team are able to address some major gaps caused by heat stability, and offer a crayon box full of natural colours to suit your needs.
REDS
Solution: Beet juice colour provides excellent pink and red velvet shades in baking applications, but browns under high heat processing. For lower heat bakery applications, Sensient’s cost-effective and highly concentrated beet juice is a great option.
Solution: Heat-stable reds like carmine and Sensient’s proprietary SupraRed beet juice deliver intense, bright red shades at low usage rates.
Request Natural Red Samples Here
ORANGES
Solution: Paprika extract colour provides bold orange shades and annatto extract colour delivers more golden orange hues; both are heat-stable options for cake applications.
Request Natural Orange Samples Here
YELLOWS
Solution: Turmeric colour provides the brightest yellow and a heat-stable option but it fades under light exposure, so it isn’t a great option for clear packaged baked items. Another yellow option is beta-carotene due to the good heat and light stability it provides, as well as the vibrant golden yellow hue.
Request Natural Yellow Samples Here
BLUES/PURPLES
Solution: Natural blue shades are challenging to achieve in baking applications. Sensient’s proprietary natural blue colour offers a denim blue colour for cake applications, and in combination with heat-stable reds like Carmine or SupraRed™, you can achieve rich purple shades.
Request Natural Blue or Purple Samples Here
GREENS
Solution: Similar to natural purple blends, green shades are achieved by combining natural blues with natural yellows. Natural blues with turmeric yellow produces the brightest natural green food colouring option.
Request Natural Green Samples Here
BROWNS/BLACKS
Solution: Many cake batters are in a beige or a brownish hue if cocoa is a recipe component, but produce inconsistent end shades. Historically, caramel colours have been the go-to brown solution for standardisation, but in recent years, Sensient has filled the gap alternative options. We have a suite of natural brown alternatives to caramel colours from golden to peanut butter shades using our Sienna™ fruit juice and darker brown shades with natural blue and brown blends.
Request Natural Browns or Black Samples Here
CREATIVITY DOESN’T END AT SINGLE COLOURS
Bakery developers can innovate colourfully with multicolour swirls for an even more memorable visual experience.
Brighten your bakery innovation with a sample of our natural food colours today-select your hue here!
If you are uncertain about a natural colour sample or would like to discuss strategies for natural colours for a specific shade, my team and I would love to talk. Please set up a consultation with us here.
