Food colorants: their past, present and future

Whether we are purchasing fresh vegetables from a market stall, ready meals from the supermarket, eating at home or in a five-star restaurant, we use colour to tell us what to expect in terms of taste, nutrition and safety. This review considers the techniques that have, over the years, been employed to modify the colour of our food, and the interactions of these techniques with issues of safety and nutrition. The demand for brightly coloured food resulted in the incorporation of some questionable inorganic and organic chemistry being used in food products. A limited number of synthetic dyes are still used in food today, but health concerns and the consumer-driven demand for natural colorants has brought about a change in the way food is coloured. The proliferation of products with labels that state they contain No artificial colours on supermarket shelves suggests that the future of azo dyes and their various derivatives is strictly limited. Nature produces an abundance of colours and many of these are extracted and used as natural food colorants; however, they are subject to application limitations and stability problems. Significant research by academia and industry into methods to stabilise and expand the application possibilities for the various approved natural food colorants is ongoing, but most developments that food colour manufacturers proclaim are enhanced vehicles for delivering established natural pigments into food products.