Natural and brilliant: ADM Wild launches micronized color powders from coloring foodstuffs

16 Apr 2019 --- Archer Daniels Midland’s (ADM) Wild Flavors and Specialty Ingredients Business Unit (WFSI) has launched micronized color powders made from coloring foodstuffs and paprika extract for particularly vibrant shades of orange. The new micronized color powders are made up of particles that are much smaller than conventional color pigments, says the company. This gives the powders a larger surface – in relative terms – and increases their opacity. As a result, they give foodstuffs a highly intensive and striking coloring. The launches come as ADM increases its production capacity for WILD coloring foodstuffs and WILD Colors from Nature at the company’s Berlin site.

“Natural color ingredients have become the new standard in Europe,” Fabian Uelner, Product Management Ingredients WFSI – ADM tells FoodIngredientsFirst. “Artificial colors are nearly exclusively used in areas where natural solutions have not been found yet, such as acid stable blues for beverages or usable red in which the requirements halal, high pH value and high heat treatments all occur at the same time,” Uelner notes.

With this backdrop, ADM Wild is therefore exploring new product opportunities, based on their market insights, ingredient knowledge and efficient product development. “ADM Wild is always searching for and developing new ways of coloring food and beverages naturally, adding new color shades to our portfolio such as just now paprika as a new coloring foodstuff for particularly vibrant shades of orange,” he continues. “It can be used for all food applications.” 

Fabian Uelner, Product Management Ingredients WFSI – ADM The colorful launches come as the clean label trend continues to boom. Innova Market Insights reports 13 percent CAGR in food and  beverage launches with a clean label claim (Global, 2013-2017). Products with this type of positioning accounted for 29 percent of global new food and beverage launches reported in 2017.

An Innova Market Insights Trends Survey (2018) found that 55 percent of Chinese consumers, 43 percent of US consumers and 24 percent of UK consumers aged 26-35 years share pictures of their food online once a week or more. The survey found that one in five US consumers are influenced by social media when buying food and beverages and coloring foodstuff and bright hues are certainly driving this trend.

ADM offers micronized color powders for all common color shades. The new solutions complete the previous range from yellow to red, now also allowing for additional colorings in green and blue colors. The raw materials that ADM use are coloring foodstuffs such as safflower, curcumin, red radish and spirulina. The products are available for applications including  instant beverages, chewing gum, powder mixtures, concentrates and confectionery. Despite the small particle size, the colors are by no means nanomaterials, the company stresses. 

Paprika for bright orange: The WILD Rainbow Range
ADM’s range of coloring foodstuffs and natural colors has also been expanded and now includes paprika as a new coloring foodstuff that can be used for all food applications. It is suitable for all pH values and is heat-stable. In contrast to orange carrot, for example, paprika extract does not change its color and become more yellow when heated, but rather retains its original orange, without the use of any E-numbers. 

Paprika can be used to give a bright orange color to various products, including confectionery, snacks, ice cream, baked goods, breakfast cereals and chewing gum. It is actually an original color rather than the result of mixing two separate colors (red and yellow). 

Both the micronized color powder and paprika extract can be declared as ingredients with no E-numbers, making them suitable for clean label marketed products. 

Flavors that utilize fruit and vegetables for their natural bases are also growing and the market is seeing a proliferation of options.

ADM Wild has further developed the space of fruit-based flavors. From The Named Fruit (FTNF) is a portfolio of natural flavors that complements ADM’s classic natural flavors, Florian Buttmann, Product Manager, WFSI – ADM Nutrition, told FoodIngredientsFirst last month.

“When it comes to innovative flavoring products, the demand is steered towards solutions that are as natural as possible,” Buttmann said.

“With natural flavoring, the color should also come from natural sources. Ultimately, however, it is the taste that decides whether the product is bought again and thus whether it is successful on the market,” Uelner noted.

The news from ADM Wild comes during a time where natural colors are in the spotlight. In December 2018, coloring foods company GNT tipped the broad “sunshine spectrum” of colors ranging from bright yellow through to deep orange to stimulate colorful food and beverage development in 2019. This market dynamic is happening as consumers seek out products that inspire upbeat, positive emotions and unite people with a feeling of joy, in what Innova Market Insights pegged “I Feel Good” in its top ten trends list for 2019.

Moreover, in February 2019, Danish-headquartered bioscience company Chr. Hansen commercialized a new vegetable variety – the Hansen sweet potato Ipomoea batatas – using traditional breeding methods to create a long-sought after vibrant, natural red alternative to carmine. 

By Elizabeth Green