Naturalness Trends in Beverage Space

“Better-for-you” products and those supporting holistic health and wellbeing goals are popular with consumers seeking to clean up their diet. Brands across the beverage industry are innovating and renovating to meet rising consumer demands for natural ingredients with new launches in energy drinks, sports drinks, flavored waters, functional beverages, and more.

Color Adds Value to Performance Beverages

Even though Mintel data shows that less than 13% of all new flavored water launches in the past three years contain color, consumer spending and consumer research data both indicate that shoppers prefer colorful beverages.

Sports drink formulations are increasingly incorporating naturally derived colorants in response to consumer concerns over synthetic dyes. From 2018 to 2023, 67% of new global sports and energy drink launches featured added color, yet only 23% relied on artificial colorants. In parallel, brands are more prominently communicating “no added/artificial colorings” on packaging and in marketing, with a marked increase in such claims in the United States in late 2024.

This aligns with Sensient’s extensive proprietary research, which has shown consistently that optimized, flavor-appropriate color increases purchase intent and consumer flavor perception in beverages.

Ensuring Color Stability in Performance Beverages

• Acid Content: Although many natural colors like anthocyanins thrive in low pH conditions, an extremely acidic environment may negatively impact natural color performance. Selecting stable colors is key to success.
• Packaging: Beverages often have clear glass or plastic packaging, and in that case light-stable colors will be necessary. Sensient’s color team works regularly with our customers on accelerated and real-time light stability testing.
• Ingredient Interaction: Functional ingredients like vitamins, minerals, and caffeine may interact with natural color ingredients to impact performance. If multiple emulsions are in place within the same formula (such as flavor, cloud, and color emulsions), it can improve stability to work with Sensient’s team to combine these into a single system.

Formulate with Nature’s Rainbow

• Reds & Pinks: Bold reds and juicy pinks are possible with cost-effective anthocyanins like black carrot and purple sweet potato. Carmine and cochineal add extremely stable alternatives to fruit and vegetable juices.
• Oranges & Yellows: For energetic or immunity-signaling oranges and yellows, color experts look to the carotenoid family. Beta carotene and turmeric offer a range of bright, saturated colors in the citrus shade family. Since these colors are naturally oil soluble, Sensient’s Advanced Emulsion Technology (AET™) can be used to stabilize the emulsions and help them blend seamlessly into water-based formulas. Pure-S™ Paprika is a purified version of paprika that removes any unfavorable flavor off-notes from the spice source while maintaining a visually stunning vibrancy.
• Blues & Purples: Although sky blues remain difficult to achieve with natural solutions in high-water applications, Sensient’s R&D team is constantly working to expand the natural rainbow. For rich purples at low pHs and brilliant dark blues at higher pH levels, FDA-approved butterfly pea flower extract is a uniquely successful solution. Warmer shades of purple can be achieved with blends and other anthocyanins.
• Browns: Caramel offers developers a wide range of browns from light tan to dark chocolate shades. However, for brands seeking to replace or avoid caramel due to California’s Prop 65 labeling requirements, Sienna™ is a natural brown solution with fruit juice labeling. Developers can reach darker shades of brown with Sienna™ blends.

Let’s Unleash the Rainbow—Together

We understand that customer success is our success. Amidst a tumultuous regulatory environment and pressing consumer demands, Sensient is ready to help you unleash the power of color however best fits your needs.