India's Natural Palette: Clean-Label Colors and Flavors

Indian food manufacturers in recent years have been replacing chemical-sounding additives with common kitchen ingredients.

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A “clean label” in food is simple, clear ingredient labels, as an example, naming turmeric or beet juice rather than "FD&C Yellow #5." Clean-label products in practice contain natural colours and flavours and do not use synthetic preservatives or man-made dyes. This is a consumer-led movement: urban Indians are label-conscious, a recent market survey discovered that about 68% of urban consumers read ingredient labels, and about 6 in 10 deliberately shun artificial preservatives or sweeteners.

Increasing Demand Across Food Categories

Clean-label trends currently cut across virtually all food categories in India, snacks and bakery foods to drinks, dairy, confectionery, and frozen foods. Biscuit or potato chip makers, for instance, are increasingly using beetroot, carrot, or turmeric extracts to colour foods instead of artificial colorings. Saffron, vanilla, cardamom, and cinnamon are go-to flavorings in bakery and confectionery. Dairy and yogurt companies apply plant colorants such as annatto (to orange colors) or spirulina (to green) and organic sweet flavorings (mango, berry, etc.). In drinks and juices, turmeric (yellow), mint, and ginger are favourite add-ins, and even fermented or probiotic drinks are being sold with fruit- or herb-flavored tastes

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