Natural Colors: An Array of Options and Health Effects
Consumer demand has driven numerous manufacturers to reformulate their products to remove many synthetic colorings, regardless of their proven safety. Global sales of natural colors have been projected to be more than US$600M annually, up approximately 29 percent from 2007; natural colors now account for over 40 percent of the global color market.As the demand for natural colors increases, manufacturers must increase development efforts to ensure the variety, versatility, tinctorial strength and stability of these value-added functional ingredients.
Clinical studies demonstrate the health-promoting potential of natural colors such as anthocyanins, carotenoids, turmeric and others. Since fruit and vegetable intake is suboptimal for most of the U.S. population, the addition of natural col...