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The beverage industry is very dynamic, and consumers are constantly on the lookout for the next innovation. But they still want to know what’s in the beverages they drink, and it’s important that they contain natural colors and are free from artificial ingredients. 

Pale shades can highlight the naturality of your product, while bright and bold colors can help your products stand out from the crowd. Read about our many different beverage applications and how we can help you achieve exactly the result you want.

Beverage Icon

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We offer natural food coloring for drinks as powders, liquids, oil-soluble or water-soluble. If you need natural food color, you can get it from Oterra. 

Oterra | Best Food Coloring Options for Beverages

As consumers continue to look for healthier carbonated soft drink options, reformulating your product with natural ingredients can be the key driver for success – and differentiate your products from the competition.

We can help you with your formulation and advise you on how to address technical challenges such as low pH, carbonization, and packaging. Our wide range of products, including encapsulated, emulsified, and stabilized natural pigments are specifically designed to overcome these common issues.

Carbonated soft drinks

The demand for concentrates goes beyond consumer products. In the B2B market, the volume of compounds is growing with an increase of independent bottlers and private labels.

Though different customers have different needs, there are similarities when it comes to stability. High acid, high flavor load and high sugar content are just some of the technical parameters that can be a challenge in terms of stability. We can help you with the best food color solution and technical support for your concentrates. 

Concentrates

Fueled by consumer demand for food and beverages with health benefits, functional beverages are becoming increasingly popular. 

Color plays an important role in highlighting the function and naturality of these products. But added ingredients like vitamins, minerals and botanicals can affect stability. Our application centers do extensive research to find the best match for your products from our wide portfolio of natural food colors and formulations. 

Functional beverages

Juice based products meet consumer demand for natural and they’re often perceived as a healthier alternative to similar products that aren’t juice based.

Natural food colors add to this natural appeal. From creative blends for food-explorers to healthy products for the health-conscious consumer, we can help you find the ideal color solution to strengthen your product and the concept behind it.

Juice-based beverages

Convenient, on-the-go products are a great fit for busy lifestyles. Whether it’s a functional beverage or a refreshing lemonade, sensory appeal is key to success.

With our range of I-Colors®, we can support powdered beverages that require color with good plating ability. Our high strength powders also offer excellent cost-in-use, without compromising on quality.

Powdered beverages

Though energy drinks have often been perceived as artificial, consumer demand is driving the industry towards more natural solutions with less sugar and that are free from artificial ingredients.

Added vitamins, minerals, and ingredients like caffeine can have a significant effect on the stability of natural colors. When you partner with us, we work closely with you to select the right color with the best natural color for your energy drink. 

Energy drinks

Flavor, type of fortification, pH level, production processes and packaging all matter when formulating your beverage application. Our recommended natural food colors for beverages are thoroughly tested to deliver maximum performance.

Whether you’re converting to natural, launching a functional assortment, or looking for a stand-out new shade to match your latest flavor, we can help you achieve all-out appeal.

Beverage

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Color is a key feature of candy and gum products. As constant innovation is a must, natural food colors can be the differentiator you need to take your colored candy to the next level.

We can help you uncover new opportunities and develop exciting, bright candy that hits the sweet spot and appeals to consumers everywhere. 

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Jelly gums, otherwise known as gummies and jellies, as well as pastilles and fruit snacks are popular with kids and adults everywhere. But without added color, these family favorites are almost colorless or at best slightly yellowish. 

When it comes to picking a favorite from the candy bowl, color makes all the difference. For stand-out bright, vibrant colored jellies, our natural food colors offer the stability and robustness you need to deal with processing and storage conditions such as low pH, high heat, and light.

Jellies and gummies

Whether hard and crunchy or soft and chewy, the coating on your panned confectionery should have a smooth and even color. 

Though a whitened center is a good starting point for a bright color finish, the shade and color intensity of the final panned product depends on the color dosage in the panning syrup and the number of applications. Other factors that impact the final color are the ingredients in the color formulation, as well as the temperature, holding time and pH of the colored panning syrup. For a colorful, resilient candy coatings, we recommend our CapColors™ for easy, trouble-free panning. 

Panned candy

When air is incorporated into foam candies, pulled chewy candies, or extruded marshmallow, it creates stunning pastel shades. The more air, the lighter the color intensity. 

We can help you achieve the perfect pastel shade for your aerated confectionery. Especially in highly aerated foam candy, concentrated colors give the best results for intense shades. Pigments sensitive to oxygen, such as carotenoids, and pigments sensitive to pH, such as anthocyanins, can affect your yellow, orange, pink and red shades. We can help you get the results you’re looking for so you get perfectly colored foam candy.

Foam candy

No matter what the shape and size of your hard candy and lollipops, we can help you achieve brilliant color for any flavor, from fresh and fruity to cool mint. 

Low pH and high heat can affect the stability and robustness of pigments in hard candy. For deposited, pressed, or pulled processes, we can help you achieve vibrant jewel-like transparent and opaque shades. 

Hard candy

We can help you take your pressed tablets from white to pretty pastel with our colors from nature. 

For plating perfection, powdered food colors from our I-Colors® range are ideal. The small particle size, particle distribution and density ensure an even and stable color no matter your tablet base. 

Pressed tablets

From fat-based fillings in chocolate bars, to colored compound coatings, or a decorative element on the surface of fat-based products, natural food colors can bring a distinguishing twist of brilliance to highlight the flavor profile of the product. 

Oil-based food coloring is recommended for easy dispersion into the fat-based mass and to avoid impacting the texture of your chocolate-based treats.

Chocolate-based confectionery

For uncoated gum such as slabs or chunks, process conditions and the gum base composition can impact color performance. And depending on the shade you want and your production process, colors that are heat stable natural food coloring that is also pH stable may be necessary. 

Chewing gum

From laces and belts, to filled tubes and even sugar/acid sanded surfaces, we can help you color your extruded candy. 


High heat, pressure, and low or high pH levels can affect the final color of your product. Whether your extruded candy has a fresh fruit or an intense, deep licorice flavor, we have a natural food color to match your needs.

Extruded candy

Heat, processing time, water activity and pH levels are just some of the parameters that affect the performance of natural colors. Regardless, color is the ultimate sweet spot for confectionery, whether it’s light, bright or something in-between.
As candy is a hit with kids of all ages, parents are looking for confectionery that’s naturally colored and contains safe ingredients. We’re here to help you achieve striking, fun colors that draw the eye, as well as food coloring that surprises and delights.

Confectionery

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The dairy industry is a front runner in clean label, as consumers look for natural ingredients and labels they can relate to and understand. 

Our natural colors and coloring foods are available in a range of solutions that are stable in a range of process conditions, and in an appealing palette of shades to match your flavor. 

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Get appealing shades of food colors for your production. We have used annatto extract since 1876 and are the leading provider of great, clean colors.

Oterra | Strong, High-Performance Natural Food Colors

Fermented milks such as yogurts or fresh cheeses are popular with consumers and considered a healthy option by many. When it comes to food color, the fat, protein content, acidity level and the type of packaging can affect the final shade.

Fruit preparations are often used in fermented milks to add interest, flavor, and real fruit. Natural colors help clean your label and are a great way to enhance the color of your fruit preparation. We offer a wide range of food color options that are robust, vibrant, and stable in low acidity and high process temperatures. 

Fruit preparations and fermented milks

Colored UHT milks are a favorite with kids everywhere and are a rich source of essential nutrients, while crème desserts and puddings are an indulgent treat for the entire family. Color plays a vital role in both. 

Natural colors add appeal to UHT milks and desserts, making them a hit with children, their parents and anyone who prefers natural, clean ingredients. We can help you choose a high-performance, appealing food color that’s stable in neutral pH and under UHT treatment.

UHT milks and desserts

Cheese making is steeped in tradition. One long-standing tradition is using annatto to boost the color of ripened cheeses like semi-soft continental cheeses or cheddar. 

Our first color from 1876 was annatto used to color cheese. It’s still a good choice, and we have a range of solutions that are non-pinking and offer great heat and shelf stability. Our most recent innovation for cheese is WhiteWhey®, a patented formulation using beta-carotene that achieves the same great yellow and orange shades, without affecting the color of the whey.  So, if whey is one of your revenue streams, you no longer need to choose between great colored cheese and white whey.

Cheese

Fruit fillings provide delicious, brightly colored fillings or decorations for tasty pies, bakery products and bars.

To enhance the color of your fruit fillings, regardless of the fruit content and your processing conditions, we offer a full selection of stable natural colors and coloring foods to appeal to and delight your customers.  

Fruit bakery fillings

Almost everyone loves ice cream in all its forms like Italian ice, premium or everyday ice cream. From a frozen bite on the go, to a take home treat, or a universal favorite like vanilla, chocolate, mint, or strawberry, the options and flavors are endless.

Color can help set your ice cream products apart in your market – even vanilla comes in a range of pale to bright yellow shades depending on regional preferences. We can help you develop colorful concepts that inspire and entice your customers. And we help you find the ideal natural color or clean label solution to suit the fat content, pH level, pasteurization, homogenization, and final overrun parameters of your processing set up. 

Dairy ice

Refreshing water ice products like ice pops, fruit bars, slush ice and sherbets come in a stunning array of colors. From bold, bright reds to clear, cold blues, color is used to draw the eye and support the flavor. 

We offer a full rainbow of shades in our natural food color range, including a minimally processed range to brighten your water ice products and support your natural ingredients profile. And if low pH and light stability are concerns, we provide support to help you choose the right food coloring solution for your needs. 

Water ice

Factors such as flavor, formulation, heat, light, pH level, and the base color of your ingredients can influence the final color of fruit preparations, and dairy-based or plant-based applications.  

When you partner with us, you can draw on our deep clean label color know-how to ensure the most stable, stunning result, minimal transfer, and resilient performance in everything from tasty cheeses and probiotic yoghurts to exotic fruit preparations and the coolest dairy or plant-based frozen desserts.  

Dairy, fruit preparations and ice cream

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Visual appeal continues to be one of the main drivers of innovation – and the desire to share. While vibrant food colors are increasingly popular, consumers also expect formulations to remain natural and clean labelled.

Our in-depth understanding of how to apply natural colors to a wide range of bakery and cereal applications gives us the ability to offer technical service and support to quickly match changing industry requirements.

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Use our clean label, cost-effective food colors in your production. Produce bakery and cereals with the best natural ingredients from Oterra.

Oterra | The Best Natural Food Colors for Bakery and Cereals

A delicate sweet treat, macarons are enjoyed around the world. But they’re sensitive – excess water and specific emulsifiers can influence the whipping level of the egg whites and cause the dough to collapse during baking. 

When selecting macaron colors, it’s important that the food coloring is heat stable, performs well in neutral pH and doesn’t contain emulsifiers. Tested and carefully selected, our wide range of natural food colors for macarons have minimal or no impact on the texture and smooth surface. The powdered food coloring in our ColorFruit® or FruitMax® ranges are ideal for easy and homogenous mixing with the powdered baking mix – without adding additional moisture. 

Macarons

Colored burger buns are a fun seasonal trend that regularly pop up in food service restaurants and retail. The possibilities are endless, from red buns for Valentine’s Day, to colored national flags for events like World Games or other seasonal branding. Natural food colors can be the differentiator that makes your product stand out. 

We help you uncover new opportunities and develop exciting and colorful products that catch the eye. For bright, stable color in your burger buns or brioche, heat stability during the baking process, pH stability, as well as oxidation and light stability are crucial.

Natural coloring for burger buns and brioche

Easy to use and convenient, powder mixes make baking fun. For cake or custard dessert powder mixes, powdered food coloring must be stable towards heat, oxidation, and neutral pH. For bakery mixes, it’s important that food colors don’t influence the leavening process and texture during baking. And for instant jellies, in addition to moderate heat and oxidation stability, you need food colors that are stable at low pH and resistant to flavor components. 

Our experienced application team can help you choose the bet food color for your recipe and process. I-Colors® are ideal for powdered food color applications that require good plating ability of the color. If cost is a factor, our high strength powders offer a cost-effective, quality solution. And if you’re looking for more clean label options, we recommended our FruitMax® powders. 

Powdered food coloring for dessert and cake mixes

Cheerful and fun, icings, fillings, frostings, and decorations add an eye-catching pop of color to sweet treats. We can help you develop your next colorful concept using our natural colors that are available in every color of the rainbow.  

For great food color stability, robustness to neutral pH and light are important requirements. For fat-based fillings, frosting and decorations, we recommend our oil soluble, clean label FruitMax® range or oil soluble solutions from our ColorFruit® or Vegex® ranges. And for sugar icing and other water-based decorations, we recommend water soluble food colors or coloring foods.

Colored icing, fat fillings, frosting and decorations

A convenient consumer favorite, breakfast cereals must be visually appealing and nutritious. But the food coloring you choose needs to be resilient and stable. 

We offer a robust range of natural food colors that are thoroughly tested in our lab and extrusion pilot, so you can be certain they’re suitable for your production environment and are stable under high heat, high pressure, and neutral pH. And we can help you explore new possibilities for your cereals and snacks and provide technical service and support to quickly match changing industry and consumer needs.  

Colorful breakfast cereals

If base color, high heat, high fat content, or high or low pH levels play a role in your formulation or production process, we can help you find the shade and formulation you need for a truly appetizing result.

And we’re always on-hand to support you with expert guidance and technical advice, from product development and production to stable color throughout your product’s shelf life.

Bakery and cereals

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Highly diverse and with frequent product launches, it takes speed, flexibility, and great ideas to keep your meat and savory innovation progressing. We provide technical service and support to quickly match changing industry and consumer needs.

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Get clean label, high-performing food colors for meat and savory food production. Order natural colors for natural food and improve your product.

Oterra | Get Oterra Food Coloring for the Best Color Pay-off

An attractive and appealing sensory experience is important for bouillon or soup products. 

The final product composition, the processing conditions, and most importantly the salt level will impact your choice of natural color. Our yellow to brown shades are perfect choices for a natural bouillon or soup coloring. But if you want to go green, we can get you there too. 

Bouillons and soups

When it comes to innovation for sauces, dressings, and spreads, the focus is on naturality, with new flavor trends constantly emerging and shaping choices.  

Sauces, dressings, and spreads vary greatly in composition, from water based to water/oil emulsions and oil/water emulsions. Each composition can require food color solutions with different solubility characteristics. We offer a complete range of natural food colors that meet the solubility characteristics of your application. 

Sauces, dressings, and spreads

The meat category is under increasing scrutiny, and all-natural claims are on the rise. An attractive, fresh appearance matters. 

We provide technical service and support to quickly match whatever shade you need, from an appetizing pink for emulsified sausage to a meaty red for fermented sausage. With Oterra, you can achieve a perfect red for your meat production using natural red coloring.

Meat

We can help you find the right food color for your seafood product line, including our CapColor® and Vegex® product ranges, which can help you create the perfect shade for your surimi or prepared seafood line. 

Seafood

With snacking on the rise, providing innovative and diverse sensory experiences for consumers is increasingly important. And if it’s a healthy snack, that’s even more reason to use natural food colors.

Whether a color additive is added to a snack as a dry topical seasoning, pre-dissolved in an oil slurry or added into a culinary seasoning, we can help to match your color of choice. We offer everything from powdered food colors to oil soluble food colors that are available in a wide color range. 

Snacks and seasonings

Though yellow is traditionally the color of choice for noodles, pasta and rice products, the food color possibilities have expanded to meet consumer demand for new, exciting cuisine choices.

Whether you’re converting to natural, looking for a light shade to highlight the naturality of your product or need an intense clean label color, we have the expertise and knowledge to support your food coloring needs.  

Noodles, pasta, and rice

With the increasing demand for convenience, breading and batter premixes are a growing application for both the retail and food service sector. 

Heat stability and no color migration to the filling are some of the key functionalities for natural colors for this application. We can help you explore new possibilities and provide technical service and support to quickly match changing industry and consumer needs.  

Breading and batter premixes

Looking for a plant-based food color for your vegetarian or vegan burger patty that delivers the perfect raw, pinkish-red and becomes delicious brown after cooking? Or a soft, clear pink for your seafood alternative? Color is key to consumer appeal, and the best results are usually achieved with a blend of raw materials. 

Whatever protein source and background color, we can help you achieve the perfect shade with our broad natural color portfolio. 

Plant-based meat and seafood alternatives

Processing, the type and amount of fat and protein, interaction with other ingredients, as well as packaging and storage conditions impact the final color of savory, meat, and meat analogue applications.  

No matter what your formulation, production process, or shelf-life requirements, our natural food colors can help intensify the color of your product and give it a fresh, bright and uniform appearance.  

Savory & Meat

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Consumer demand continues to be strong for natural, simple ingredients in pet food. Our naturally sourced, food-grade coloring ingredients can help to subtly differentiate your product, creating a premium appearance that complements your product’s flavor and mirrors the same rich color palette of the human diet and our own favorite foods.

The raw materials we use are extracted from natural sources such as fruits, vegetables, edible plants and cochineal. All ingredients in our product range are human grade and pet food compliant for cats and dogs. They meet the highest quality and regulatory standards. 

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From dry to wet pet food production, Oterra offers a wide range of safe pet food colors. Improve your production with better natural alternatives. Contact Oterra.

Oterra | Natural, Pet Safe Food Coloring

The heat and pressure of extrusion and long shelf-life requirements of kibble call for natural colors that can withstand high temperatures and remain stable during the product’s shelf-life.

We can help you with vibrant plant and vegetable colors like orange and green that emphasize your products’ vegetable content. Or give it a rich, hearty appeal and replace synthetic colors with some of our natural color options for brown and red shades. Although dogs see fewer colors than people, they see contrast well. So why not blend several shades of brown to make a more interesting meal?

Kibbles

Semi-moist or soft moist pet food is often highly flavored, and food colors are used to match the expectations of the flavor. 

Highly concentrated flavors often affect color performance. We can help you avoid common flavor and color pitfalls, so that your natural colors continue to perform at their best. Whether you need a meaty red, a seasoned yellow or beefy brown, we’ll ensure you get the right, most cost-efficient solution.

Semi-moist treats

Baked treats tend to be the brightest of all pet food applications, with fun colors pet owners prefer. They are also most likely displayed in transparent packaging, so light stability is a must. We can support you with a range of bright natural shades that allow you to claim no artificial colors and have great light stability – even for the most sensitive pigments, like turmeric. 

Baked treats

Wet pet food covers a broad range of products, from meat loaf to chunks in gravy, sauce, or jelly. Most have a high level of moisture and go through extensive heat processing, which makes high heat stable colors a must. And the background color of the base can impact the final color depending on the type of meat, fat, protein, and other ingredients used. 


Whether you’re making wet pet food in a can, tray, or pouch, we work closely with you from the start of a project to guide your food coloring journey. Throughout the development process we share our rich expertise in the science of natural food colors and applications to help you optimize your product formulation and ensure the final color of your product is stable and resilient.

Pairing your healthy, nutritious pet food with appealing colors from nature is the way to win over pet owners, and their pets.

Our natural coloring ingredients for pet food are formulated to withstand the most demanding processing methods like high heat for the best color performance – and the range is fully compliant and approved for human consumption. And if you’re looking for support to customize new or existing products, we can help troubleshoot any technical challenge.

Pet food

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Consumer preferences for all-natural dietary supplements are on the rise. We offer a full palette of food coloring from natural sources for your dietary and nutritional galenics. With both powder and liquid food color options, we are able to provide you with the exact coloring product for your production needs.

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Get vibrant tablets, capsules or gummies with Oterra's natural color pigments. Contact us to incorporate natural ingredients in your production.

Oterra | Safe, Natural Food Colors for Dietary Supplements

Among all dosage forms, tablets are the most popular because of their stability and consumer acceptability.  

We can help you find the right color for your compressed or coated tablets. Choose between I-Colors®, CapColors® and FruitMax® for homogeneous color. Our natural colors are available in dry or wet blends for excellent solubility, color uniformity and stability.

Compressed tablets

One of the fastest growing nutraceutical segments, functional gummies like vitamin gummies are a popular choice around the world, particularly for children. The choice of food coloring plays an important role.  

The base itself (e.g., gelatin, pectin, plant-based) and the addition of vitamins or minerals can affect color shade and stability. We can help you solve your formulation challenge, whether it’s solubility, pH stability, heat stability or the effect of macro-ingredients in your formulation.

Functional gummies

Hard capsules and softgels (animal or plant-based) are impacted by increasing consumer demand for natural colors and clean ingredients. 

Whatever your base, we have a natural food color that will match your needs for color stability and robustness. Our unique range of food coloring options includes our encapsulated CapColors® and LiquidCap® colors, which we recommend for softgels without opacifiers.

Capsules

Formulating mixes for instant drinks requires ingredients that dissolve quickly, disperse well, are visually appealing, taste good and have a long ambient shelf life. 

Your instant drink powder can be visibly colored or not and still produce an attractive color when dissolved. Our I-Colors® are specifically developed to meet your needs for stunning instant drinks. 

Instant drinks

Sourced from fruits, plants and vegetables, the botanicals in our NutriPhy® range are carefully selected and fully traceable. The health benefits of each active compound are scientifically documented and validated. And they’re backed with our regulatory, technical, and scientific support.

To give your dietary supplements a natural color boost, you can complement every product in our NutriPhy® range with our colors from nature in a format to suit your galenic formulation. 

Dietary supplements

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We can help you do great things with colors from nature. When you work with us, you can choose from the widest range of natural food coloring available, and just as importantly, you can draw on our wealth of experience in applying our food colors to formulations like yours.

As the world's largest supplier of natural food coloring, our natural colors are available as liquids or powders, and as oil soluble or water soluble. Contact us today!

Color know-how across applications

We can help you do great things with colors from nature. When you work with us, you can choose from the widest range of natural food coloring available, and just as importantly, you can draw on our wealth of experience in applying our food colors to formulations like yours.

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Beverage

Confectionery

Dairy, fruit preparations and ice cream

Bakery and cereals

Savory & Meat

Pet food

Dietary supplements

Beverage

Confectionery

Dairy, fruit preparations and ice cream

Bakery and cereals

Savory & Meat

Pet food

Dietary supplements