Food-Grade Colorants: Prospects and Opportunities.

Abstract

Colour has long served as a primary cue through which consumers judge the quality, safety, and desirability of foods, and its significance has become even more pronounced with the expansion of processed and convenience products. While synthetic dyes historically dominated food coloration because of their intensity, stability, and cost advantages over the natural ones, growing concerns regarding safety, health implications, and consumer perception have reshaped expectations surrounding food-grade colorants. Today, consumers increasingly associate product quality with colours derived from natural and recognizable sources, prompting substantial changes in both research priorities and industrial practices. This review examines food-grade colorants within the context of these evolving expectations with a focus on their technological development, functional potential and market relevance. Progressive research in extraction, stabilization, and formulation technologies have improved the performance of natural pigments, mitigating long-standing challenges related to instability and limited processing tolerance. At the same time, growing evidence of the bioactive properties of many natural pigments has expanded their role beyond visual appeal, positioning them as contributors to health-oriented and functional food products. In this context, biotechnology, omics-based tools, and synthetic biology offer a practical bridge between the limitations of natural colorants and the concerns surrounding synthetic dyes. These approaches enable controlled pigment biosynthesis, improved stability, and scalable production while aligning with clean-label expectations. Collectively, they provide a viable framework for addressing longstanding technical, economic, and regulatory challenges in food coloration and represent a promising direction for the future development of foodgrade colorants.