The Growing Market Need for Titanium Dioxide Alternatives
Decline in Titanium Dioxide Usage Motivates Need for Market Alternatives
White is a critical colour in food and beverage products, from confections to soups to meat analogues to pet food to coatings. With the strong colour performance of TiO2 at very low usage rates, it was once the most widely used natural colour. However, scrutiny and pushback from consumer advocacy groups and regulatory bodies across the globe continues to create uncertainty and controversy over the acceptance of titanium dioxide, resulting in a significant decline in usage over the past decade.
Following the official enactment of France’s ban on titanium dioxide in January 2020 was a global conversation on food safety, spurring manufacturers and developers worldwide to seek out clean-label alternatives.
Sensient’s global Avalanche™ portfolio was developed to address this market need:
Avalanche™ is the industry’s leading portfolio of titanium dioxide alternatives. Designed to best match the performance of TiO2 while addressing clean ingredient trends, the portfolio consists of whitening and opacifying solutions for a wide breadth of applications. We are constantly innovating to improve the performance and cost-in-use for developers.
The Avalanche™ portfolio is developed for both whitening and opacity, just like the performance of titanium dioxide.
Addressing the Challenges Associated with Replacing Titanium Dioxide
High-performing alternative portfolios like Avalanche™ help developers and manufacturers to close the gap on key technical challenges:
TITANIUM DIOXIDE
TiO2 is extremely stable and permissible in all applications. With its mineral genetic makeup, titanium dioxide positively resists moisture hold in applications, resulting in smooth surface coverage.
ALTERNATIVES
Today’s market alternatives are not permitted across a wide range of applications and stability varies from product to product. Some replacement options, such as rice starch, retain moisture and prevent effective drying, which can have a negative mottled impact on product surfaces.
To address performance and regulatory variance, Avalanche™ was designed as a portfolio of solutions versus a one-size fits all approach. Sensient’s colour experts can identify the best Avalanche™ option that best fits your application’s processing conditions and regulatory adherence. For example, Avalanche™ Xtra MB is an optimised calcium carbonate-based solution for boosted performance in confection applications like panning where a smooth and consistent surface coverage is critical to a colour’s success. However, our Avalanche™ Ultra products are more suitable for applications like soups.
TITANIUM DIOXIDE
As a mineral, TiO2 is extremely cost-effective compared to many botanical alternatives.
ALTERNATIVES
Common market alternatives like rice starch and calcium carbonate require extremely high usage rates compared to titanium dioxide which not only impact the cost of the final formula but most often negatively affect the texture of an application. Rice starch may thicken a formulation undesirably, resulting in an adverse effect in viscosity.
The products in the Avalanche™ portfolio are designed to perform and function differently across applications, and our R&D team is constantly working to lower cost-in-use while reducing negative mouthfeel effects due to higher usage rates. The team has made excellent strides in the Avalanche™ Xtra solutions.
Tips for Success with Sensient’s Avalanche™ Portfolio
Don’t be discouraged by negative experiences with other alternatives! Avalanche™ isn’t like other titanium replacers, and we’ve seen success in formulas and processing that proved incompatible with other whitening solutions.
Avalanche™ is a portfolio, rather than a single “golden ticket” product, which has enabled us to create optimised solutions for various applications and processing conditions. If one Avalanche™ product didn’t work for you, another option might!
Avalanche™ is very clean-label but regional permissibility of some ingredients may vary. Sensient’s regulatory team can help provide guidance on how to label it in your market.
Our team of technical experts can give personalised guidance on successful implementation of Avalanche solutions to ensure minimum impact on your process and guide you through the formulation, testing, and scale-up process.
Avalanche™ is higher stability than individual components available such as rice starch. It’s engineered for success.
Avalanche™ is higher stability than individual components available such as rice starch. It’s engineered for success.
Even if you’ve tried Avalanche™ before, don’t think you’ve seen it all! We are constantly evolving and improving our global portfolio. If you’re ready to jump into solutions, request a sample, and our technical experts will send you the optimal Avalanche product for your application.
We understand replacing titanium dioxide can be extremely challenging and we are here to help. Request a consultation if you have any other questions pertaining to Avalanche™, or our other food colour solutions.
