Ingredient replacements and reformulations can be some of the most difficult and tedious challenges – especially when they span many product lines. One of our ongoing projects was transitioning products with artificial colours and flavours to natural, clean label alternatives.
This process, although challenging was actually quite fun. There were many ingredients that had to be replaced across many different products, from cake batter to coating chocolate, mousses and icings – each with their unique difficulties.
With natural colours in bakery items, there were issues with heat and pH stability as the colours changed throughout various stages of production. Finding a true natural flavour match for an artificial counterpart across many products required rigorous testing.
In addition to successfully transitioning several product lines to use only natural colouring agents, we were inspired to implement some innovative colour fidelity guidelines for R&D and production teams, such as determining Pantone® Matching System colour ranges for each formula to ensure continuity between batches, plant facilities, and even across continents.