Certified Organic Rainbow for Beverages

Consumer demand for organic options continues to evolve the “naturalness” trend across the entire industry landscape.

7 IN 10
adults would like to see a wider selection of organic food and drink where they shop.
Mintel

49%
of Millennials choose organic for at least half of their food/beverage purchases.

In the beverage category specifically, the organic trend touches nearly every sub-category, from protein drink mixes to flavored waters to juice drinks to RTD teas and coffees to sports drinks to malt beverages to beers.

As a category leader in “naturalness”, beverage has been able to quickly translate consumer trends into new product launches. The lean towards organic in beverage doesn’t appear to be a passing fad, as organic beverage launches have doubled in over a decade’s time and will most likely continue to increase as more organic ingredients become readily available. Given the bubbling growth of organic beverages, developers should be well-versed in upcoming regulation changes around the use of organic compliant ingredients such as food colors. While organic compliant provides a short-term solution today, to avoid reformulation in the near future, certified organic food colors enable formulation longevity.

Why Color is Important in Beverages

At Sensient, we approach product development as a consumer would experience a product, beginning with sight. Ingredients like flavors are not as simple as the way they “taste”. Other senses, especially sight, can dominate our brains interpretation of “taste”. In an extensive 1000+ consumer study conducted by Sensient, a vibrantly colored beverage outscored a clear beverage by nearly double.

The preference for a vibrant beverage most likely stems from consumers’ perception of taste, very evident by verbatims captured in our research.

Color seems to be generating success for brands in the marketplace too. Brands like Sparkling Ice who are utilizing color to stimulate taste perception
during those first moments of truth are actually outperforming other leading brands in the sparkling water and seltzer category (IRI, 2019). The Sparkling
Ice brand uses vibrant color to support its “better taste” positioning, which seems to be a winning formula influencing their double-digit growth rate.
Since their natural color conversion, Sparkling Ice has taken the lead as the fastest growing major brand of sparkling water.

Just given our human nature as a visual specie, marketers have a much better chance at evoking a “delicious taste” when sensory ingredients like flavor and color are used hand-in-hand.

A Rainbow of Certified Organic Food Colors for Beverages

Like many beverage developers know very well, innovation is the heart beat of the industry right now, and this rings true for many ingredient suppliers too. Sensient has been innovating across multiple internal departments from our supply chain to regulatory to R&D in order to address the market’s need for a full rainbow of Certified Organic food color offerings, and we are finally there today! Beverage developers can innovate around nearly every shade under the rainbow to essentially bring any taste profile to life.

Sensient’s Rainbow of Certified Organic Food Colors

My team and I are here to assist with any natural or certified organic food color needs. With our extensive blending knowledge and capabilities, we can additionally combine colors to create differentiating shades for your brand, like our red and blue into a certified organic purple.

Our organic portfolio doesn’t end with food colors, Sensient also has an evolving portfolio of organic flavor and taste solutions. This compatible portfolio of flavors is a huge asset to us, as we can ensure our organic food color and flavor are stable for your beverage system upfront before you endure formulation challenges on the bench.

Here are some of our beverage ideas pulling from our organic portfolio for beverage applications:

Organic Lavender Triple Berry Sparkling Seltzer

Featured Sensient Ingredients

Organic Blue Vegetable Juice

Organic Black Carrot Juice

Organic Mixed Berry Flavor

Organic Lavender Flavor

Organic Turmeric Pineapple Coconut Protein Beverage Mix

Featured Sensient Ingredients

Organic Turmeric Microfine

Organic Pineapple Coconut Flavor

Organic Protein Masking Flavor Solution

Organic Passionfruit Yerba Mate Tea

Featured Sensient Ingredients

Organic Black Carrot Vegetable Juice

Organic Passionfruit Flavor

Organic Yerba Mate Extract

If you are working on an organic beverage project and want to discuss potential organic color strategies, please contact me directly by requesting a consultation here.

In addition, we always welcome developers to our Innovation Hub in the Chicago area if you would like to work side-by-side on some organic flavor and color formulations. We can get through months of formulation work in about 1-2 days together. Interested? Tell me here.

Together, let’s perfect your organic beverage’s sensory attributes to win in the market!