Spring is just around the corner – with its palette of vivid colours. The gray days are behind us, and sky blue, meadowy greens, daffodil yellow and lush violets are making their entrance. At Erbacher Food Intelligence, we focus on colours all year round. Not only because they bring joy, but also because skillful colouring foods offer additional benefits:

• It enhances the visual appeal of products – "the eyes eat first."

• It meets consumers' expectations.

• It influences purchase decisions and adds personality to products.

Pink spelt hearts? Yellow vanilla suns? Purple spring flowers? At Erbacher Food Intelligence, colouring foods are often used to give ingredients that special touch. These colouring foods are physically extracted from fruits, vegetables and other edible plants. Including for example beets, spinach, hibiscus, turmeric, tomatoes, grapes, bell peppers, spirulina or carrots. Unlike with additives, there are no restrictions on the quantity and no complex E-numbers when using colouring foods. Additionally, colouring foods that are part of the recipe do not need to be labeled as colourants; instead, they are clearly listed in the ingredients, such as concentrates.

The distinction between colouring foods and food colourants, which are additives, lies in their manufacturing process. Colouring foods are carefully processed in order to preserve the natural properties of the original product, like taste and smell.

Colourants undergo different, often extensive processing and they can be synthetically organic, which means that they do not occur naturally. The European Commission has issued various regulations and guidelines for manufacturers to correctly differentiate between food colourants and colouring foods.

At Erbacher Food Intelligence, we prefer to use colouring foods. They are either added to the extruder as a liquid or to the flour mixture as a dry component. Alternatively, colours can be applied through coating. Colourful? Naturally! We love it!

Natural, plant-based food colouring is in high demand among consumers. According to a study by the market research institute TNS on behalf of the GNT Group, a majority of respondents consider food to be natural only if it exclusively contains natural colours. Almost half of them expect these colours to be derived solely from edible raw materials such as fruits or vegetables. Simultaneously, there is a boom in vibrant colours: in the age of social media and digital colour worlds, consumers, according to analyses, prefer bright, bold and vibrant colours. Colouring foods offer both: vibrant colours and naturalness.

They thus provide a competitive advantage over products that use synthetic colours.

The demand for food without additives has increased. "Natural," "organic," "free of additives" are buzzwords and contribute to the boom of clean label products.

The use of colouring foods enables a clean label production. The demand is on the rise, as consumers are becoming increasingly critical of additives, according to the DLG and others. Manufacturers often choose to avoid declaration-free natural substances and opt for more natural products.

At Erbacher Food Intelligence, we source natural food colours upon request. They are entirely natural and 100% plant-based, making them suitable for the production of vegan, vegetarian and other foods that need to meet these criteria. Clean and clear labeling? Erbacher Food Intelligence makes it possible!

Colours have an impact, and this certainly applies to food. Even in meat substitutes, colour plays a role: a vibrant red or rich orange can make consumers find a product more appetizing and prefer it over a grayish tone. The saying "red is fresh" applies to meat as well. Thus, a colour can fulfill certain expectations. We associate yellow desserts with vanilla, according to the DLG, even though the vanilla pod is actually black. These are often associations learned in childhood.

Also, colours are attributed with psychological effects. For instance, the colour blue is said to have a calming and decelerating effect and can lead to a faster feeling of satiety when used in food, while red tones are believed to increase hunger, according to researchers. Pink evokes a sense of security, and yellow lifts the mood, they say.

In our opinion, colourful is beautiful! We incorporate all colours of the rainbow into our foods, meeting our customers preferences.

We at Erbacher Food Intelligence are happy to give shape and colour to your product ideas. Feel free to contact us and discover our colour palette.