Coloring Dairy Foods

Suppliers discuss natural and exempt colors, and how to match the color to the food.

Donna Berry, Product Development Editor

 Excerpts from September 2011 DAIRY FOODS magazine pp 44-50

Color plays an important role in food product development. In the dairy foods category, colorants are typically used to enhance or improve the color that consumers expect of their butter, ice cream or yogurt, rather than allure or shock, as in other categories such as beverage and confection.

DAIRY FOODS talked to:

Jody Renner-Nantz, application scientist, D.D. Williamson

Stephen Lauro, technical services, colorMaker, Inc. (Partner of D.D. Williamson)

Dairy Foods: Are there any instances when it is impossible to avoid certified colors in dairy foods?
 
Renner-Nantz: It’s almost never impossible to avoid certified colors in dairy foods; however matching the exact hue and stabilities of certified colors with exempt colors is where the challenge lies. It is easier in the hue ranges of yellow to orange and pink to red. Green and blue hues present a challenge over the wide pH range of dairy products. Blue hues are usually formulated with anthocyanins, which are blue at pH 7. Green is achieved through the mixing of blue and yellow, typically from turmeric. These blue and green hues have limited use since the blue hues degrade at neutral pH, typical of milk and some ice creams. Blue and green are also a challenge in low pH dairy products, such as yogurts and smoothies, since anthocyanins revert to a red hue in low pH foods. For the most part, dairy products are refrigerated or frozen and protected from light, so the light stability of pigments is not an issue. In terms of heat, exempt colors can withstand high temperature short-time (HTST) pasteurization; however. Most will not withstand ultra-high temperature (UHT) processing.

Dairy Foods: Though exempt colors may be an option in certain dairy foods applications, when does it make sense for a manufacturer to stick with certified colors?

Lauro: One of the advantages of certified colors over those that are exempt is their extended shelf life, but this is seldom an issue with most dairy foods, which display a relatively short refrigerated shelf life. Another advantage enjoyed by certified colors is their significantly lower cost-of-use. While they may be priced similarly, pound-for-pound, certified colors are much stronger, whether in dye or lake form, and can therefore be used at levels as low as one one-hundreth of what you would need with an exempt color. Thus, the cost-of-use of the certified colors may become a factor in low-margin, high-volume dairy products. Another advantage of certified colors is their ease of use. Minor color adjustments can often be made at the end of the process by personnel on the production line. This simply is not possible with exempt colors. The latter requires an in-depth understanding of both the color and the food system. An example is lemon-flavored ice cream. Sometimes the processor selects turmeric as a natural yellow color for this type of product, which is a good color choice. But the package may have a cellophane window, allowing the consumer to see the finished product. This is good for the consumer but bad for the turmeric, which is sensitive to light. The turmeric exposed to light in the package’s window fades and when the consumer opens the package, he or she may be greeted by a dull whitish circle on the surface of the ice cream surrounded by bright yellow lemon-flavored product.

Dairy Foods: The term artificial colors is associated with certified lakes and dyes, and when certified colors are not used in a product formulation, marketers can use language such as “does not include any artificial colors.” Can you please comment on why most of the time they cannot say “naturally colored?”

Renner-Nantz: Generally speaking, naturally derived colorings — those exempt from certification — are derived from natural sources, and synthetic/certified/FD&C color additives are manufactured from petroleum-based raw materials. The labeling of exempt colors continues to be a source of confusion. It seems intuitive that exempt colors should be labeled as natural since they are derived from nature; however, FDA has not defined the term natural as it relates to food colors and labeling exempt colors as natural is not permitted. However, exempt colors may be noted on the front principle display panel as “derived from natural sources.” If a food product is colored with an ingredient that is common to that food, for example, elderberry yogurt colored with elderberry color, then the product can be labeled as “naturally colored.”

Lauro: Strawberry ice cream with added strawberry juice may be marketed as “all natural.” Unfortunately, it will not be very red because strawberry juice quickly turns brown even when frozen. On the other hand, strawberry ice cream colored with beet juice will be a vibrant red color, but because beet juice is not natural to strawberry ice cream, it is considered an artificial color in this application.

Dairy Foods: Many food industry critics have issues with the perceived naturalness of exempt colors. What is the concern?

Lauro: Most of the criticism surrounding natural colors has little to do with how they are extracted and more to do with how they look. The visual appearance of exempt colors is generally far lighter and more pastel than certified colors, which in comparison appear vibrant, strong, almost iridescent. When delving deeper into the methods of extraction, one will discover that oil soluble colors such as paprika are often solvent extracted. Some question just how natural is an ingredient if it must be extracted by a solvent. But the majority agrees that when compared to the petroleum distillation processes by which all certified colors are created, exempt colors are pretty close to being natural.

Dairy Foods: Most color suppliers have a few tricks up their sleeve. Can you share any?

Lauro: It’s all about having an in-depth understanding of the color and the application. For example, a prepared food manufacturer may want to accent a product with blue cheese but cannot afford real Roquefort. A cheesemaker can select a color that delivers a shelf-stable blue-green color to produce a cheese sold as “blue cheese crumbles.”

Renner-Nantz: Rather than simply offering a standard coloring, we work with dairy product developers and manufacturers to achieve exact hue wishes, which we validate in their specific product. For example, for an overseas cheese powder manufacturer, we recently converted an oil-soluble carotenoid coloring to a water soluble form of the same hue.

Dairy Foods: Looking inside your crystal ball, what’s next in the world of food colors?
Renner-Nantz: Color manufacturers will continue to focus on improving emulsification techniques, which enhance the solubility of oil-soluble colors in water or water-soluble colors in oil. There will be more discussion and focus on nanotechnology from regulatory authorities as color product innovations develop. From a global perspective, color manufacturers will continue to evaluate new anthocyanin-containing fruits and vegetables, especially those with improved light stability that results from greater acylation of its chemical structure.