In today’s food and beverage market, color shapes how consumers experience a product. It signals freshness, influences flavor perception, and drives purchase decisions. As brands move away from synthetic dyes, they face new challenges in stability, processing, and maintaining vibrant, natural hues across global markets.
At Kalsec, our Natural Color Solutions team helps customers bring color to life naturally, combining pigment science with real-world application expertise. We sat down with Helene Seaver, Color Innovation Scientist, to talk about how she helps brands solve complex formulation challenges and discover what’s naturally possible in color innovation.
Q: What does “Discover What’s Naturally Possible” mean in the world of color innovation?
Helene: For me, it means showing brands, especially in the savory space, that they don’t have to compromise. Whether it’s a plant-based burger, a global sauce, or a ready meal, we help food developers achieve colors that are both vibrant and label-friendly. At Kalsec, “naturally possible” means making the everyday foods people love look as good as they taste.
Q: What kinds of color challenges are customers bringing to you lately?
Helene: Savory foods can be some of the toughest applications. Think about the heat of retort soups, the light exposure of snack coatings, or the oil-fat systems in sauces and seasonings. Customers ask: Will this color stay stable through processing and shelf life? That’s where our technical expertise really shines, where we test solutions in real-world savory conditions.
Q: What makes Kalsec’s approach to natural colors different?
Helene: We know savory inside and out. Many color suppliers focus broadly on confectionery or beverages, but Kalsec’s heritage is in savory applications. That means we understand how color interacts with proteins, fats, spices, and heat processes. When customers come to us, they don’t just get a pigment, they get a solution engineered for their specific savory challenge.
Q: How are legislation changes in the U.S. creating new opportunities for natural colors?
Helene: The shift away from artificial colors is accelerating, and savory categories are right in the spotlight. Processed meats, sauces, and seasonings are moving rapidly toward naturals, not only for compliance but also because consumers expect authenticity. This is where we help customers transform reformulation challenges into opportunities to highlight “no artificial colors” on pack.
Q: What formulation challenges are emerging in global markets right now?
Helene: It varies by region. In Europe, savory manufacturers are balancing natural color with strict allergen and additive regulations. In Asia, we’re seeing demand for bold, eye-catching shades in sauces, beverages, and noodle applications. In North America, the big shift is around consumer scrutiny of ingredient lists. People are reading labels more closely and choosing products with recognizable, natural components. That means manufacturers are reformulating to replace synthetics with natural colors while maintaining stability and shelf life. It’s a challenge we help them solve every day.
Q: How do you balance color performance with clean-label expectations?
Helene: Especially in savory foods, it’s about designing color systems that don’t just look good on day one. These colors need to hold up through cooking, distribution, and shelf life. We use smart combinations of natural pigments, stabilizers, and application know-how to get there. Clean-label doesn’t mean fragile color; it means smart formulation.
Q: Can you share a success story where your team solved a tough color problem?
Helene: We recently helped a customer in the dairy and sauces category looking for a more natural alternative to their synthetic color system. They needed a shade that could handle heat processing and long shelf life without fading. Our team reformulated the system using natural pigments and advanced stabilization techniques, and the result was a color that performed better than expected, even outlasting the synthetic control in testing. It’s a great example of how natural solutions can deliver both performance and a clean label.
Want to learn how Kalsec can help you Discover What's Naturally Possible? Connect with our experts today.