Sensient Suprared naturally-sourced red coloring that stands up to heat
SupraRed from Sensient Colors may work in baked products.

CHICAGO — Sensient Colors has introduced SupraRed, a naturally-sourced color that delivers intense, bright red shades at a neutral pH and stands up to heat, allowing it to work in baked foods, including red velvet items. Sensient Colors is offering details on SupraRed at its booth No. 1631 at the Institute of Food Technologists’ annual meeting and food exposition going on in Chicago.

Potential applications for SupraRed include cookies, snacks, tortilla chips and extruded cereal. The color may work in such confectionery applications as licorice. Potential beverage applications include strawberry milk.

Typical baked foods and dry grocery products are in a pH range of 5-7, according to St. Louis-based Sensient Colors. A heat step, associated with baking or extrusion, may raise pH even further. Red anthocyanins may shift to purple from red. When using beet sources for red color, the Maillard reaction may cause browning and affect color.

A novel purification technology from Sensient Colors helps to avoid such problems and leads to a betanin vegetable juice. SupraRed vegetable juice in both liquid form and powder form contains the ingredients beet juice, maltodextrin, citric acid and ascorbic acid. The range of pH is 4-7 in both forms.

A lower usage rate from SupraRed may eliminate product texture issues and off-notes, according to Sensient Colors. The color is non-bioengineered/non-G.M.O.