Use vibrant, natural colours to attract bakery customers

In its 2018 Top Trends Report, Innova Market Insights revealed that consumers favour foods that are colourful and look good in their social media feeds. So it’s important to consider how products will appear on social media, including on smartphone screens.

Achieving a vibrant, appetising effect with clean-label products is vital to securing a position in this marketing opening. Plus, it has the added benefit of encouraging social media users to share pictures of products, as well as offering bakery companies a great opportunity to post their own images, showing that their products are exciting and positive, with feelgood visual appeal.

The way that bakery products look is a key part of how they are experienced by consumers. In fact, research has shown that colour is the first attribute considered by consumers and represents 75% of the product assessment process.[1]

With artificial colours off the table as an option, due to consumers’ desire for clean labels and the trend to remove animal-derived ingredients like gelatine, carmine and beeswax from recipes, it can seem a challenge to achieve the desired effect. However, with today’s high-performance natural colours, there’s no need to sacrifice clean labels to achieve feelgood colour palettes that bring happiness to the consumer.

By using natural ingredients, bakery manufacturers can also benefit from being able to provide the assurance that, yes, their products are treats, but they are also wholesome treats. This can help to change the perception of bakery goods and give them renewed levels of relevance and popularity, as they are on-trend in terms of both appearance and ingredients.

Bakery manufacturers face challenges when switching to new types of ingredients as they follow consumer trends. That’s why it is important to use the advice of application experts who can support bakery producers through the entire product development process – from colourants to colouring foods and in matters relating to regulatory issues.

To harness 2019’s yellow and orange trend, and also ensure bakery companies have the option of keeping to clean label solutions, GNT has selected a new collection of colouring foods – EXBERRY Sunshine Shades. Ranging from bright sunbeam yellow to warm harvest orange they are all derived from raw materials rooted in nature, including pumpkins, carrots and turmeric, extracted using gentle physical processes such as pressing, chopping, filtering and concentrating.

Colouring foods are different from other types of natural colours. They are made from food, so they are not classed as additives, but foods with colouring properties, and therefore qualify for cleaner labelling declarations. They can impart almost any shade to foods, including the on-trend Sunshine Shades, and are ideally suited to bakery production. Find out more in EXBERRY’s Shades of Sunshine Trend Report.

With more than 400 EXBERRY shades available, GNT can offer bakers the biggest range of colour shades on the market. As artificial blue colours have been firmly rejected by consumers and the industry, GNT’s shades include a natural bright blue, from Spirulina, which has a long history of being used as a whole food and dietary supplement for its health benefits. GNT has invested in a new Spirulina processing plant and sees a great future for natural colours originating from it.

Bakery manufacturers should also consider the benefits offered by GNT’s vertical integration. Controlling the supply chain, from supplying seeds to contract farmers, through to processing and fulfilment enables the company to secure high-quality raw materials and offer bakery manufacturers complete traceability for the colouring ingredients they can use. Watch how we grow EXBERRY colours.

Having inventory always in stock – even for large orders – means delivery can be secured, and that pricing, quality, and colour intensity will all be stable and predictable. In addition, bakery manufacturers should always rely on a company with the experience to deliver what’s needed, when it’s required.

[1] Mintel, 2016