Prospects for new natural food colorants

Abstract

There has been much interest in the development of new natural colorants for use in the food industry, which is apparently due to strong consumer demand for more natural products, at least in some countries. There is no doubt that it is technologically feasible to prepare new natural colorants from locally known plants or microorganisms that have not yet been investigated scientifically. However, on considering economic, legislative and consumer acceptance aspects, prospects for new food colorants look less promising. It is unlikely that it will be possible to introduce completely new natural colorants into today's food manufacturing industry, as long as current food legislation and consumer attitudes remain unchanged. Furthermore, there are no reasons to believe that newly discovered pigments will be any more resistant to processing conditions than those that are already available.