For beverages, colors can play a crucial role when it comes to shelf appeal. They can help grab a consumer’s attention as well as correspond to the flavor and branding of a beverage. In addition, as beverage-makers seek more natural ingredients to be able to provide clean label statements, the search for colors that can deliver on all of those requests has helped spark innovation among ingredient suppliers.
“All of our research indicates people are really starting to care about what they put into their body and especially in diet drinks,” says Stefan Hake, chief executive officer of GNT, Tarrytown, N.Y. “People don’t just count calories, they’re aware of what they’re putting into their body, and there’s some great diet drinks like water drinks that are zero calories and they are also natural and don’t contain any artificial colors.