Natural food colorants: Extraction and stability study

Abstract

The food colorant market is growing at a 4.6% annual rate, and it is estimated to reach 2.3 billion dollars worth of the global market. The color of the food is considered the most critical aspect while purchasing any food items, as it is most likely associated with the freshness and quality of the product. Synthetic and natural colorants are added to enhance the color properties of a food product. However, synthetic food colorants cause long-term adverse health impacts. Therefore, natural colorant-related topics have gained significant interest in research field. Natural colorants with the highest applicability are anthocyanins, carotenoids, and betacyanins, because of which they are discussed in brief. From the literature review, it has been found that the current research trend is to find different sources, various feasible and effective extraction methods of natural colorants. Even after the effective extraction of colorant, the stability problem arises. As stability is associated with storage time, it is crucial to improve the stability of the extracted matrix. For this purpose, various microencapsulation and nanoencapsulation methods are devised by various researchers. Furthermore, the degradation mechanism of various food pigments is also discussed in brief.