A Closer Look at Oranges from Botanical Sources
Orange is an enthusiastic, uplifting, high-energy colour, and it can bring to life flavours from savoury to sweet. Whether you’re working on a spicy snack seasoning, a sweet citrus beverage, or even a nutrient-dense pet kibble, chances are you’re looking for an orange hue to bring it to life. While bold oranges can be achieved using blends of natural reds and yellows, often our customers are seeking the most efficient and turnkey colour solution for a specific project. Check out these orange colour solutions based on single botanical components, along with tips and tricks for using each one efficiently:
Annatto is a versatile natural colour solution within the orange family. Sensient offers this colourant as both a water-and oil-soluble solution, making it a popular choice across applications. We also have an acid-proof option, which is popular in lower pH systems like dips and spreads. Sensient’s focus on robust supply chain security for this botanical and others ensures that we are involved from seed to shelf, optimizing cost for our customers each step of the way to finished goods.
Paprika is a heat-stable, consumer-friendly solution, often recognized on ingredient lists as a flavour or natural colour. Naturally oil-soluble, it thrives in low pH applications. The powder version of paprika excels in dry seasoning applications, ensuring consistent performance. To enhance its versatility, Sensient leverages Advanced Emulsion Technology to transform paprika into a water-soluble natural colouring perfectly suitable for beverage applications and varying degrees of opacity. Understanding the importance of food safety, our Certasure™ program safeguards our paprika solutions from risks like pesticides so that brands can be confident in the food safety standards of their colour ingredients.
Pure-S™ Paprika is a gentle purification technology that reduces or eliminates flavour off-notes in applications like beverages, frozen novelties, and dairy products. As a spice, paprika is both boldly coloured and boldly flavoured in its natural state, so the Pure-S™ technology is used to ensure that developers can leverage the rich orange hues of this natural colour without a flavour impact.
Beta-carotene solutions can be both natural and nature-identical, offering a wide range of orange hues to developers across applications. These colours are preferred for their excellent stability and wide colour variety, from warm peachy oranges to yellow-orange shades. Beta-carotenes are also available in the red and yellow family for even more options.
Sensient’s Advanced Emulsion Technology (AET™) offers developers both clear and cloudy beta-carotene-based solutions for orange hues with reduced cap staining and ringing. Because carotenoids are naturally oil-soluble, an emulsion is necessary to use this versatile colour source in water-based applications. They typically work well in applications like beverages, confections, dairy products, and pet food.
Carrot offers an easily recognizable clean-label solution for orange hues that will appeal to natural-ingredient-seeking consumers. The portfolio of colouring food options is an alternative to beta-carotene and due to its broad stability is popular across a multitude of applications, including dairy, ice-cream and bakery products.
Lycopene is a natural colour that has excellent heat, water, acid, and light stability making it a flexible choice for orange shades as long as maximum permitted dosage levels are adhered to. While it presents in the red and pink family for beverage and dairy applications, this colourant offers orange hues across low-fat applications.
Pumpkin is label-friendly and has good stability across applications. While pumpkin is one of the most popular orange vegetables on its own, especially in the fall, once extracted this colour isn’t as strong as many alternatives. However, certified organic pumpkin solutions are available to meet consumer demand.
Lutein is one of several additional orange options for developers offering a heat- and acid-stable solutions for confectionary, bakery and beverage applications.
Furthermore, Sensient’s Orange Blends are based on a careful selection of specific raw materials and a combination of suitable natural sources, which result in a unique product range. These blends produce a variety of colour shades from warm light orange, apricot orange, up to tropical orange ideal for use in acidic applications such as beverages, fruit preparations or jelly gums.
Sensient’s Cardea™ solutions are entirely composed of natural ingredients and concentrates, meeting growing clean labelling demands. Options that are especially suited for the use in beverages due to superior stability properties are available.
But how do you know when to use each of these solutions? Reach out to our team of colour experts to get started. We’re here to help, answer questions, and guide you on your way to unleashing nature’s rainbow in your next orange project!
