Incorporating Natural Colors into Food Products
As food manufacturers respond to growing regulatory pressure and consumer demand for clean label products, natural food colorants are quickly moving from niche ingredients to mainstream solutions. This shift is creating new challenges for food processors, particularly maintaining color integrity, achieving ultra-fine particle sizes, and ensuring consistent functionality in finished products. Equipment suppliers are playing an increasingly important role in helping food manufacturers meet these evolving requirements. Processing spoke with Frank Bernero, manager of food applications and technologies at Hosokawa Micron Powder Systems, to learn how Hosokawa’s fluidized bed jet mills support the production of high-quality natural color powders.
Q: Why are natural food colorants becoming so important today?
FB: There’s been an FDA-driven shift away from petroleum-based, synthetic colorants. Also, there are consumer health concerns with artificial ingredients. They are looking for more of a clean label product. There’s also an ecofriendly aspect and antioxidant benefits with natural colorants. So, that’s what we see as an equipment supplier. The market has always been out there, but currently there’s a lot more activity because of those reasons.
Q: How does Hosokawa help companies improve the quality of their natural color powders?
FB: What we focus on primarily is our equipment and systems for size reduction. We look at the quality: maintaining the natural color of the material and providing the material in a particle size that assists their functionality. So, mouthfeel, emulsification, mixing — whatever qualities they want with that end material — our equipment provides that. We’re talking about powders that are less than ten microns and finer, so it’s a really specific niche. Our fluidized bed jet mills are able to provide that type of product.
Q: What benefits do customers see from controlling the particle size of their powders?
FB: The advantage of controlling particle size is to meet the demand for how they want that powder to perform — functionality, colors. So, we’re using the Hosokawa Alpine fluidized bed jet mill that has a dynamic classifier wheel, and that’s one main component that allows the client to adjust the particle size distribution. It produces a very steep particle size distribution, and that distribution can be moved along the curve up or down based on changes in the parameters of the system. So that’s something key that we provide with that technology that enhances their materials.
Q: What technologies does Hosokawa offer beyond milling?
FB: Hosokawa is a worldwide supplier of powder processing equipment, so in addition to size reduction, we provide equipment for classification, compaction, containment, mixing. We also have flash drying, we have freeze drying, and we have a line of equipment that will modify and bond material and coat material, in addition to material handling, which is just moving material from one place to the next within the system. We encompass everything involved with powder processing
Q: What do companies need to consider when handling products such as spirulina or beet color?
FB: With these types of products, it goes to achieving the end size that they want. Like I mentioned, it’s 10 microns or less as a top size, which is very critical. And the other thing is maintaining that natural color. We’re not degrading the vivid color that this natural colorant provides in the product; we’re maintaining that. So, those are key parameters that our equipment and systems can deliver to the end user.
Q: How does Hosokawa support food safety and cleaning requirements when dealing with these natural colors?
FB: We work with clients very closely on their health and safety and quality control. So, from the equipment manufacturing standpoint, we look at how it’s made — the weld, the polishing, and the material of construction — and how that fits into their quality and cleaning. Another cleaning aspect is how easily accessible the equipment is. In this case, we’re talking about a fluidized bed jet mill, which has access to the chamber where you can get in. In larger units, we can bring the classifier wheel, which is a round cylinder, and pull it out on rails. That allows easy access to the parts that need to be cleaned or replaced. We work very closely with end users on what level of cleaning they go into — in some cases, it’s clean in place (CIP) — where we can add features within the systems to address items like that.
Q: What sizes do Hosokawa jet mills come in?
FB: They range from very small, where the mill chamber might be 12 inches by four inches deep, to units that are 8 feet tall when standing on their legs. We offer a wide range of jet milling technology and other technology as far as the ability for systems to work off load cells, so that we can weigh the equipment and weigh the bed of material that’s in the chamber.
Q: Can you talk about the importance of testing equipment with your specific materials before making a purchase?
FB: That’s key in any of the industries we deal with, and we deal with food, pharmaceutical, chemical, minerals, plastics. And we’re worldwide, so we have test centers worldwide. But here in the US, we have a test center in Summit, New Jersey. We encourage clients to come in to test their materials so we can see, with their given material, what would be the outcome? What would be the results? So that’s a very helpful, useful tool that we start out with in most applications where it’s product specific. We’ll have a client bring the material in, test, evaluate, and from there we can scale up to the larger systems.
Q: Why should companies partner with Hosokawa when getting involved with natural colors?
FB: What we’re providing, that isn’t seen on paper, is the people and the support structure. Here in Summit, our facility, our organization is over 100 years old. Our parent company is over 100 years old. We have sister companies as well, over 100 years old. So, partnering with Hosokawa, you get worldwide support of equipment, knowledge, testing capabilities, spare parts, and service. To be in business this long doing what we do — obviously we’re doing it right because we’re still here performing and supporting equipment. We have equipment out there from our facility — our Mikro Pulverizer Hammer & Screen Mill, which started the company here in the US — with serial numbers dating back to the 1950s. So, we are still supporting equipment that we made in the ‘50s today with parts and service. And then today we progress to newer equipment, newer technology — advancements to that previous equipment — and we support that as well. So, it’s the combined network of working with Hosokawa, with the test facility, the experienced people that support it, and the network of spare parts and service. That is why Hosokawa should be at the top of your list as someone to contact and work with for your projects.
