Immunity, Energy, and Mood-Boosting Colours for the Beverage Category

Pandemic Heightens Consumer Desire for Functional Beverages
COVID-19 brought about an emphasis on health and wellness, expanding its definition to include the physical, emotional, and mental. More consumers are turning to their food and beverage selections for support on their wellness journey, seeking out product offerings with added benefits and functionality – in particular, immunity and mood-boosting claims. Clean ingredient statements are essentially a must in the functional and wellness beverage category with colour from botanical sources a great opportunity to tap on.

Colour Lifts Purchase Intent in RTD Beverages
As innately visual creatures, consumers gravitate towards colourful beverages because they equate colour with added taste. To stand out in a crowded shelf for saturated categories like sparkling waters and hard seltzers, differentiation is critical.

In China, 68% of consumers claim that flavoured sparkling water tastes better than unflavoured upon purchase. A recent Sensient study also showed that a bright orange colour can drive up purchase intent by 3.6% in tangerine sparkling water.

Colour is even more impactful in the functional beverage category because it signals both flavour and function, conveying key product attributes.

When Sensient tested a red sports drink compared to a flavour-elevating purple for an acai-blueberry option, purchase intent and flavour perception increased substantially, at +7.3% and +6.8% respectively. Purple connects with consumer expectations of “superfruits“, supporting both the flavour and the visual perception of imparted functionality.

Bringing Functional Beverages to Life: Uplifting Natural Hues
Bold and bright shades convey energy and mood-boosting qualities to consumers looking for uplifting products.

Red and Neon Pink: Thanks to vertical integration in our anthocyanin portfolio, we offer a wide range of cost-effective reds and pinks to help bring energetic concepts to life. Our technical team can support formulation development to ensure natural colours work well in your specific process and application. We can create custom colour formulations to perfectly match the flavour profile of the red you are looking to achieve.

Rising Orange: In Frank Sinatra’s words, “orange is the happiest color.” Brands can awaken the energy of consumers with joy, enthusiasm, and hope. Plant-based food colors with “health halos” like Pure-S™ Orange and Beta Carotenes are increasing in popularity as they bring to life specific moods in beverage categories. Sensient’s vertically-integrated cochineal portfolio offers a cost-effective bright Rising Orange hue that is unique compared to the more common pinks and reds achieved using cochineal and carmine.

Yellow: For beverages using opaque packaging, turmeric offers a bright yellow boost. If light exposure is a factor for your project, our team can also achieve bright, vibrant yellow colors with additional color options, such as Beta Carotenes. Since carotenoids, like beta carotene, require emulsification to perform optimally in high-water applications, Sensient’s Advanced Emulsion Technology (AET)™ enables developers to formulate confidently even with multiple emulsions (color, flavor, clouding agents, functional ingredients, etc.) in play.

Colours to Convey Immunity
56% of Thai adults are interested in food and drink products that improve immunity. 70% of Chinese adults regularly include immune-boosting food and drink in their diet because of COVID-19. (Mintel 2020).

Yellow: For immunity-focused projects protected from light exposure, turmeric is a great option for bright yellow shades, especially with its “health-boosting” image in consumers’ minds as an anti-inflammatory and antioxidant-rich botanical. Sensient’s fully developed turmeric pigment solutions simplify the formulation and scale-up process for developers and brands.

Cloudy Rising Orange: In addition to its joyful, energy-boosting hue, Rising Orange is also associated with Vitamin C, fresh citrus fruits, and immunity-boosting benefits. Bright orange tones from carrot juice and other natural sources can convey higher antioxidant and nutritional value. The addition of a clouding agent (or the use of cloudy ingredients) suggests higher fruit or vegetable content as a premium feature.

Berryful Reds and Purples: Elderberry is a popular choice for label-friendly reds in immunity-related beverages at the moment. Consumers recognize elderberry on ingredient statements and associate it with immunity and antioxidant properties. We also offer cloudy reds and purples from fruit and vegetable juices to achieve an appearance reminiscent of natural juices.

Moreover, clean botanical extracts such as Hibiscus, Yerba Mate, and Ginger from Sensient’s portfolio can add to your product’s taste and provenance claims. We test the stability of colour and functional extract combinations in-house to ensure they will perform as expected. Let us help your team accelerate new product development with immunity-boosting beverage systems!

Calming Hues to Promote Relaxation and Sleep
More than one in ten consumers of functional drinks looks for “sleep aid” as a benefit, and that doubles to one in five for more general “calming/relaxing” benefits (Mintel 2020).

Purples and Blues: Cool colours have long been associated with calming moods, but are difficult to achieve in beverages. Sensient’s Butterfly Pea Flower Extract offers unique denim blue shades for pH levels above 4.0. In lower pH systems, this natural blue remains stable and imparts cool purple hues. These options open the door to a wider range of soothing purples through blends with natural red solutions such as anthocyanins.

Get Started with Natural Colours TODAY
Natural colour is a great way to bring delicious and exciting flavours to life. If you’d like to sample a shade that brings a specific benefit or emotion to life, let us know in your sample request! Our technical team is always available to help you overcome any development challenges from stability to scale-up.