Colourful Inspirations in Flavoured Waters
Over the past few years, consumers have an increasing orientation towards more healthy lifestyles. Hydration is important for many aspects of health.
This creates strong opportunities for ‘everyday hydration’ products and accelerated the growth of the flavoured water market. Flavoured water has become a preferred choice for consumers seeking healthier alternatives to sugary beverages. And flavoured water is equally relevant for those consumers who view flavoured water products as a great option to increase their daily water intake, especially if they find it more challenging to drink plain water. It comes to no surprise that flavoured water launches have shot up.
Compared with plain waters, the share of flavoured water launches recorded a jump in activity, accounting for 49% of all bottled water launches in the year to May 2023. Around 30% of all flavoured water launches featured vitamin/mineral-fortified claims.
Mintel GNPD, June 2019-June 2023
Flavoured Water vs Other Beverages:
From Consumer’s Perspective
It’s essential to understand how flavoured water stands out in the crowded beverage market.
Here’s why flavoured water could be a game-changer for your product range from a consumer perspective:
Alternative to other soft drinks: Consumers view flavoured water as a healthier and more natural alternative to carbonated soft drinks and other sugary drinks. This provides an opportunity to formulate products that cater to the health-conscious consumer market.
Calorie Conscious: With zero or low-calorie variants, flavoured water can appeal to consumers looking for refreshing beverages without the added sugars or calories. This opens up possibilities for formulating healthier, guilt-free beverage options.
Hydration Benefits: Flavoured water not only satisfies thirst but also provides hydration benefits. With added electrolytes and enticing flavours, it makes staying hydrated an enjoyable experience. This presents a unique selling point for your beverage products.
Future Health Aspects: Flavoured water does have the potential to pair hydration benefits with ingredients that could relate to aspects of health, such as skin health, cognition and digestive health, which future launches could benefit from.
Flavours and Vibrant Colours:
What do consumers desire?
Lemon, Raspberry and Apple flavours dominated the product launches in Europe, Middle East and Africa regions. However, new generation of consumers are looking for exciting and mash-up flavours combined with vibrant colours in their beverages.
Mintel GNPD 2023 Data
Incorporating Vibrant Colours to Flavours in Your Product Formulation
Consumers prefer colourful beverages with bold, vibrant hues corresponding to the drink’s flavour. Sensient’s consumer research found that consumers like colourful beverages better than their colourless counterparts and are more likely to purchase them.
Colour will be the first part of your product that consumer interacts with.
There are few parameters to consider when formulating your next flavoured water product. Natural colours may interact with other ingredients such as flavours, juices, or vitamins. Additionally, paying attention to both product acidity and processing conditions, plays a key role in assuring color performance.
Formulation in the functional water space adds additional considerations for developers.
For example, added compunds like vitamins, minerals, and proteins, may impact colour stability. Functional ingredients often require collaboration with colour experts to identify and mitigate stability concerns within the formula, typically specific to each base.
Last but not least, for flavoured waters with transparent packaging, light stability is an important feature.
Colour experts work closely with developers to select and stability test colour solutions to stand up to harsh, constant store lighting.
Bring Your Flavoured Water To Life with Nature’s Rainbow
By incorporating Sensient Food Colours’ range of natural colours and flavours, you can formulate flavoured water that not only tastes great but also aligns with consumer preferences for natural and healthy ingredients. Explore our collection of natural and vibrant colour solutions to create standout flavoured water products today.
Colouring Foods and Natural Colours for Flavoured and Functional Waters
Red to Pink Shades
For flavours like watermelon, grapefruit or pomegranate, Sensient’s natural red colour portfolio is here to help with unique colour solutions for products across a wide pH range.
Yellow Shades
Trending flavours like lemonade, pear, and pineapple each benefit from a different shade of yellow in Sensient’s colouring food and natural colour portfolio.
Brown Shades
Brown hues are perfect for flavours like honey, coffee, and cinnamon in beverages. Explore our range of Natural Browns for your application, a great alternative to any caramel-based colouring.
Orange Shades
Carotenoids like beta carotenes and paprika bring flavours like tangerine, ginger, and blood orange to life. In order to stabilize these naturally oil-soluble solutions in flavoured waters, Sensient’s Advanced Emulsion Technology (AET™) reduces particle size to avoid emulsion interactions or broken emulsions.
Green Shades
Explore how to achieve natural green shades for favours like kiwi, mint & cucumber with Chlorophylls.
White-Opaque Shades
White flavoured waters bring to mind flavours like coconut, white peach, or pina colada. Discover how Sensient’s Avalanche™ can achieve the shade you desire in flavoured and functional waters without titanium dioxide.
