Natural and organic

On Feb. 5, 2016, Mars, Incorporated made a big promise: Within five years, it would remove artificial colors from its entire portfolio of food for people.

"Eliminating all artificial colors from our human food portfolio is a massive undertaking, and one that will take time and hard work to accomplish," President and CEO Grant F. Reid said in the press release accompanying the announcement. "Our consumers are the boss and we hear them. If it's the right thing to do for them, it's the right thing to do for Mars."

Mars' portfolio includes Skittles, with its advertising tag line "Taste the Rainbow," as well as Starburst and M&Ms. But it wasn't the only one making this sort of commitment.

In June 2015, General Mills had pledged to remove artificial colors and flavors from all of its cereals, including its vivid Trix cereal and Lucky Charms with its rainbow of pastel marshmallows. According to a blog post about the commitment, the company was hoping that 90% of its cereals would be free of artificial ingredients by the end of 2016. 

Kellogg made a similar promise. In an August 2015 call with investors, then-North America President Paul Norman said the company was working toward the goal of removing all artificial colors and flavors from its cereals — including its Technicolor Froot Loops and Apple Jacks cereals — and other products by 2019.

Transitioning all of these brightly hued products to natural colors could both demonstrate the quality and function of the colors of today, and move these items closer to having clean labels, made solely with ingredients consumers understand. These decisions were on pace with consumers worldwide at the time. A January 2015 Nielsen report about healthy eating trends indicated 42% of consumers worldwide found it very important that products contain no artificial colors (though just 29% in North America felt the same way).

But it didn’t happen. None of these companies met their original goals on colors. The deadlines they set for themselves came and went, and the brightest items in each company’s portfolio still get their vibrant colors from synthetic food dyes.

The reasons for stepping away from these pledges vary, but are all along common themes. Companies said they believed consumers didn’t want artificial colors in their products, but subsequent research proved otherwise. Natural colors didn’t perform the same as their artificial counterparts. Consumers were unwilling to buy formerly vibrant products with the duller natural colors. 

But, consumer advocates say, people really do want fewer artificial colors in their food. 

"It's deeply disappointing," said Lisa Lefferts, senior scientist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "I think if they wanted to meet the commitment, then they could have."

CSPI has been advocating for artificial colors to be banned since 2008, when the group formally petitioned the Food and Drug Administration. Its reasoning was that synthetic food dyes had been linked to problems in children’s behavior since the 1970s, and evidence of the association was mounting.

CSPI's petition led to a 2011 meeting of FDA's Food Advisory Committee about synthetic food dyes. But the meeting led to no actions, just more studies that seem to corroborate CSPI’s position. Lefferts composed her own report on the issue in 2016.

While the federal government hasn’t taken any action on dyes, lawmakers in California have picked up the mantle. A bill proposed in 2017 to require labeling on products using artificial colors became a near-$500,000 appropriation for a comprehensive study looking into the link between artificial food dyes and children’s behavior, which was published in April 2021.

'Not every consumer wants the same thing'

Most of the companies that made pledges to remove their artificial colors let their self-imposed deadlines pass without comment.

Mars has a statement on its website updating its initial commitment. But all of the companies told Food Dive there are still artificial colors in a percentage of their products. Kellogg is the closest to meeting its commitment, with 90% of its cereals using only natural colors. More than 85% of General Mills’ cereals use natural colors and flavors. And Mars has removed artificial colors from all of its dinnertime foods, but is not prioritizing moving to natural colors for its candies sold in North America.

In its statement, Mars said that after making its 2016 commitment, the company put significant time and money into developing new ingredients, seeking regulatory approval, working on manufacturing and looking more closely into consumer needs and expectations.

"In doing so, we have found that consumer expectations regarding colors in food differ widely across markets and categories," the website states. "This has motivated us to reevaluate our global intent and seek to identify approaches that are more locally tailored to address these differences."

In Europe, where consumer concern about artificial colors is greater and many products with artificial colors need to have warning labels, Mars is concentrating on removing all synthetic dyes. And, the company stresses on the website, there are several confectionery options available worldwide that do not have any artificial dyes. 

General Mills made high-profile efforts to switch to natural colors that did not go well. In early 2016, the company changed packaging on Trix, Reese’s Puffs, Cocoa Puffs, Golden Grahams, Fruity Cheerios, Frosted Cheerios and Chocolate Cheerios to highlight that there were no longer artificial colors or flavors. At first, consumers responded positively to the change. Then-CEO Ken Powell said in an March 2016 earnings call that these seven cereal brands had seen a 6% sales bump since the reformulations, up from a 6% decrease the year before.

But things did not stay so positive. In 2017, after hearing consumer complaints and seeing sales declines, General Mills brought back Trix with artificial colors.

It turns out consumers "don’t all want one thing," then-company spokesman Mike Siemienas told The Wall Street Journal at the time.

Siemienas said that General Mills also struck out with trying to find a natural color solution for Lucky Charms after spending an extensive amount of time and effort on the problem.

"In consumer testing, consumers did not like any of the options, so we did not make any changes," he said in an email. "We have exhausted the current colors from natural sources available at this time."

General Mills' focus has shifted away from removing artificial colors and flavors from its products as a singular R&D target. Siemienas said the company is focused on meeting consumers’ needs, but those are not all the same. The company will continue to innovate and will update recipes when they improve products. General Mills already has several cereals that have no artificial colors and flavors, he pointed out — including Cheerios, Chex and Kix — and has launched kid-targeted cereals that contain nutrients but no artificial colors, like Sesame Street Cereal.

"Not every consumer wants the same thing and every product does not need to be the same," Siemienas wrote. "It is important to focus on the people who eat the products every day and make sure that any changes made to the products meet their needs."

As for Kellogg, spokesperson Kris Bahner said in an email that 90% of the company’s branded cereals, snack bars and Eggo waffles don’t have artificial colors or flavors as a result of its push toward natural reformulaton. 

"We use artificial ingredients in some foods to provide the great taste and quality consumers expect and appreciate while continuing to provide a wide variety of choices," she said. "We will continue to leverage the best available science ensuring our foods are safe, and transparently label our foods."

'Major CPGs put the brakes on large-scale conversions' 

From these unfinished commitments, it may appear that CPG companies have stopped being concerned with artificial colors. David Rigg, global food marketing director for Sensient Food Colors, said that is not the case.

"About 80% of new products introduced in the U.S. — and in fact, that happens to be similar globally — they use colors from natural sources," Rigg said. "...What's really happened is that the major CPGs sort of put the brakes on large-scale conversions."

And those conversions, where a known product is reformulated without artificial colors, haven’t stopped either, Rigg said. Manufacturers are still interested in moving existing products to using natural colors, and they begin these conversations aware of some of the limitations. However, when there’s a new product coming on the market, consumers won't notice if it looks different or is more expensive, he said. 

While artificial coloring is basically many combinations of the six well-known synthetic dyes approved by the FDA, natural colors are much more varied in hue, function and behavior, Rigg said. But, in most cases, there are natural colors available today that can achieve the same degree of vibrancy as synthetic ones. In some instances, like purple hues, natural colors are actually superior to artificial ones, Rigg said.

Natural colors' behavior differs by product type. They may become less stable in food or beverages with different pH values, and could react to light and heat. Rigg said that Sensient has been able to figure out how to get around some of these challenges, but conversations with customers are very dependent on what their products are, what the packaging is like, and what they hope the dyes will do. For example, he said, a green icing made with yellow coming from turmeric may not last in a package with a clear window because the color isn’t stable with light exposure. Most of Sensient’s color R&D is around making better greens and blues that will remain stable in different applications, Rigg said. 

There’s also the cost involved in using natural colors, Rigg said. To make a product more vibrant using a natural color, more is usually needed, driving costs up.

"It's not that natural colors are that expensive. But synthetic colors are incredibly cost effective," Rigg said. "In most formulations — virtually all, in fact — using synthetic color is some insignificant part of the total formulation cost. And when you move to natural colors, it looks a lot more like [the cost of] a flavor. So it's not necessarily prohibitive, but it's a big jump from where you used to be."

As with other reformulations, Rigg said, consumers may not understand why a product that has been remade with natural colors would suddenly cost more. And, while some manufacturers may have used similar tactics to keep consumer price increases down when other commodity prices go up, like decreasing pack sizes, Rigg doesn’t know of any manufacturer that has been able to justify a price increase simply by using natural colors. And, he said, blues and greens tend to be some of the priciest natural colors.

Companies that make food dyes aren't the only ones putting R&D effort into natural colors. Mars funded a decade-long research project that found a natural blue colorant in red cabbage. According to the findings, published in April 2021 in the Science Advances journal, this color has properties that are nearly identical to the synthetic industry standard, FD&C Blue No. 1. This new blue is still a distance away from finding its way into food. In April 2021, Mars still needed to do product and application-specific testing and submit the new color to the FDA for approval.

While CPG companies have defended their stepping away from a natural color transition by saying it isn’t as important of an issue for consumers, Rigg said it isn't quite that simple.

"I would say about 60% care and will change their purchase behavior," Rigg said. "But if you have a product category that taps into a need state where they're not thinking about things like artificial colors, or a consumer segment that is unconcerned, then there isn't a lot of motivation to change."

Bringing in the science

As manufacturers consider their options, there is the risk that legislators or regulators will force their hand. California state Sen. Bob Wieckowski has been looking at artificial colors and their impact on consumers for years.

Soon after he was elected to office, Wieckowski began working with the California Council on Science & Technology’s Science Fellows program, which places Ph.D-level scientists in different disciplines in state legislators' offices.

Through the years. Wieckowski has worked with several scientists who told him about concerns the scientific community has had with synthetic food dyes. Many independent studies appeared to show a connection between artificial food colors and the behavior of children and animals, but FDA and other regulators in the United States had not made any policy changes. In the meantime, international regulators — including in Europe — had used this research to prohibit some dyes in food and drink, as well as create a labeling regime to warn consumers that products containing artificial dyes could have a negative effect on children’s behavior.

"When it comes to food dyes, we just never had any labels, so the consumer is left in the dark," Wieckowski said. "We talked about it and came up with this idea of just having a warning label back in 2017."

Wieckowski's bill, which would require a label telling consumers that synthetic dyes can cause behavior problems or hyperactivity in children, did not become law. However, Wieckowski is a member of the Budget and Fiscal Review Committee, and was able to appropriate almost $500,000 for a comprehensive study looking into the topic as part of the state’s 2018 budget.

The study was done by California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), which is a division of the state’s Environmental Protection Agency. OEHHA is responsible for administering Proposition 65, the state law requiring warnings for chemicals that could cause cancer, birth defects and other harm.

OEHHA led a comprehensive and multiyear process, taking a deep dive into the issue and having its findings peer reviewed. The agency started out with a two-day symposium in 2019, inviting experts to talk about artificial colors and research, said OEHHA Deputy Director for Scientific Affairs Melanie Marty, who was one of the lead authors of the study. Then they did a deep literature and scientific review and spent more than a year writing a draft of their findings, which connected all of the research into a single report. The draft was peer reviewed and opened to comments from the public. The final draft was published in April 2021. 

The top finding, Marty said, is that artificial colors in food can impact children’s behavior, a theme that ran through the many previous studies.

"The types of effects that we're seeing were hyperactivity, restlessness, irritability, and those were noted by parents and teachers, and also in some of the better conducted studies, objective measures where the children get computer tests and that's how you can measure whether or not they're attentive," she said.

Studies that looked at animals that had been given synthetic dyes also showed neurological effects from exposure to the dyes, further supporting the conclusion, Marty said.

Wieckowski waited until the study was complete to propose his bill again. He submitted it this year, but pulled it back in April to allow his colleagues the opportunity to read, digest and understand the study. The bill will be up for consideration in 2022. 

Wieckowski is optimistic that his colleagues will support legislation to establish the warning label next year. The science behind the report is both clear and solid, he said. And if California passes this labeling law, it may start a chain reaction in other statehouses, he said.

"I think the national players and other state houses are watching to see, 'OK, how much opposition are they going to get?' " Wieckowski said. 

Lefferts from CSPI said that organization has not yet decided how it is going to use the study to mobilize policy change on the state and national level. Lefferts praised the report for using clear science to show why artificial colors shouldn't be in food.

A state labeling law could also motivate FDA or Congress to make a national change, which could standardize a warning for products in all states. Similar policy action happened in 2016, when a wave of state-specific laws mandating GMO labeling passed, forcing the federal government to put a superseding policy in place.

FDA has no plans right now to change federal policy on artificial colors, an agency spokesperson said in an email. It is continuing to review the California study, and the agency would not comment on the state’s pending legislation.

"The FDA will continue to engage in the scientific and regulatory review of color additives to evaluate their potential impact on various populations, including children, and act when necessary to ensure that the products marketed to consumers are safe and properly labeled," the agency said.

The International Association of Color Manufacturers, which represents both companies that make food dyes and the manufacturers that use them, argued in a written statement that the study doesn't establish a direct relationship between use of synthetic food dye and behavioral problems in children and "its conclusion that an association may exist are based on insufficient scientific evidence." 

"A warning statement based on inconclusive science would not provide meaningful impact to Californians but would mislead consumers and undermine consumer confidence in a safe food supply," the group's statement says. "Parents of children who may be sensitive to food ingredients, including colors, can avoid such foods in consultation with their doctor based on existing ingredient declarations and labeling requirements."

Peer reviews from three epidemiologists who specialize in the field did not find a lack of causality in the California study.

Wieckowski hopes that once the contents of the study are understood, legislation and policy changes are not needed to get artificial colors out of food. Mars, General Mills and Kellogg had no comment on the California study.  

"What we hope with the industry is that they say, ‘The better practice is, we don't need the warning on our food because we're going to take that out,' " Wieckowski said.

Claims including "raised without antibiotics," "hormone-free," "all natural" and "cruelty-free" are more influential over purchasing decisions than the "USDA Organic" label, according to a survey from Edelman Data shared by the Organic Trade Association.

The survey asked 2,500 consumers about their purchasing behavior and how they assess organic foods. While a majority expressed concerns about ethical issues assessed in the organic certification process, such as the use of chemicals in farming and the treatment of farm workers and animals, those numbers did not mean they are more likely to buy foods with organic labeling.

Many of the individual label claims are already covered under the USDA Organic Standard, indicating there is a lack of understanding from the general population about what “organic” labels fully mean.

While the Organic Trade Association survey indicated interest from consumers in many of the practices required by producers to be labeled organic, the results show a need for the organic certification process to be spelled out to consumers in a more easily understood way.

Consumer knowledge about organic foods is typically specific to types of products, the survey said. Organic produce and meat, which are heavily marketed as organic and often placed in their own section in the grocery store, enjoy high familiarity with shoppers at 39%. On the other hand, around 30% were very familiar with organic beverages and prepared foods. 

The confusion around organic products could be exasperated by the fact that there is a wide range of places consumers to get information. Only 11% of those surveyed said they turn to federal or state government agencies, including the FDA. The most common place, at 24%, was from family and friends. This was followed by social media and cooking publications at 17%. 

Organic food producers and advocates recognize the confusion and know greater transparency is needed. At the Organic Trade Association’s annual policy conference last week, Edelman Global Advisory Senior Advisor Darci Vetter said positive impressions from consumers around organic practices “didn’t necessarily translate to their purchasing behavior,” Food Navigator reported. Vetter added there should be a more accessible, go-to source for consumers to access information about organic certification. Based on the survey data, reaching consumers where they are likely to retain information on organic, like social media and recipe websites, could prove effective.

The Organic Trade Association similarly stressed in the report a need for USDA’s organic label to become consumers’ go-to source. It stated that as claims are pushed by food companies, the USDA must make it known it is the standard for what constitutes organic.

To educate consumers, the USDA could work with CPGs on providing more clarity through labeling and marketing campaigns. Or, they could create stricter guidelines for labeling products that adopt claims found in organic foods but are not actually certified organic.

For CPG makers, however, being clear about claims on packaging could be beneficial, even if those claims already fall under the USDA’s definition of "organic." SPINS data from fall 2021 showed more transparent label claims increase sales. Products citing animal welfare claims on their labeling sparked a 27% sales increase over the previous two years, the data found.

As labels such as "plant-based," "natural" and "sustainable" have become among the most trendy in food, executives at Kalsec felt they had been preparing for this moment for the past 64 years.

Founded in 1958, Kalsec produces natural colors and ingredients for everything from breads, soups and sauces to pickles, poultry and plant-based proteins. 

“Natural is here to stay," said Katie Whalen, Kalsec's director of discovery and open innovation. "I think that is evident over the entire duration of Kalsec's existence.”

Just six years ago, executives at Kalsec began working with food manufacturers to replace synthetic colors in their existing products with natural alternatives as consumer demand for better-for-you options took hold. It was a sometimes difficult and time-consuming process.

Today, CPGs are incorporating even more natural colors and flavors into their products — but this time, they are doing so at the very beginning of the development process. This has created a robust marketplace for Kalsec. A Nielsen study in 2014 showed more than 60% of U.S. consumers cited the absence of artificial colors and flavors as an important factor when making food purchases. 

But not all product color change-ups have succeeded. After General Mills updated its Trix cereal in 2016 to remove the artificial colors, consumers said the naturally sourced ones were depressing and the flavor was different. As a result, the cereal maker brought back the brightly colored Trix just one year later. And while Hershey has turned to simpler ingredients in many of its candies, it has struggled to recreate the vibrant reds, greens and other colors that give its Jolly Rancher hard candies their signature brightness without using artificial colors.

Julie Heine, Kalsec's chief commercial officer, said creating a natural match for a synthetic color can be a challenging task. Arguably the biggest obstacle is finding an ingredient that comes close to matching the desired hue. The process is further complicated by the fact that a color can be influenced by a product's fat ratio, water content and shelf life, and whether it will be displayed on shelves or in the refrigerator section. For plant-based hues, the weather also can affect how much color or flavor is expressed in a particular crop.

The pandemic has been a boon for natural, organic, plant-based and other offerings as consumers look to eat healthier. A 2020 survey by Beneo, a supplier of functional ingredients derived from chicory roots, beet sugar, rice and wheat, found that 75% of consumers globally said they plan to eat and drink healthier as a result of the pandemic. This has spilled over into the fast-growing plant-based category; a separate survey by Archer Daniels Midland found 18% of U.S. consumers bought their first plant-based protein products during the pandemic, and nearly all of them planned to remain long-term buyers.

"We’re getting just as many, if not more, requests ... for new product development," Whalen said. "I think that is driven by the fact that we sell all-natural ingredients. People that want clean labels are associating clean eating now as the new healthy eating.”

Kalsec knows it's not the only company playing in the ingredients and colors space, but it believes its all-natural focus differentiates it from competitors — making it a go-to supplier for large CPGs and small startups alike. The company also has adopted a vertically integrated approach by partnering directly with farmers, many of whom it has worked with for decades. This enables Kalsec to provide its producers insight on growing crops such as paprika or carrots, while at the same time allowing the company to amass a deep understanding of the ingredients coveted by its own customers.

"Because of the level of investment in R&D, and all the things we are doing with vertical integration as well, we portray to the customers that we’re working closely with that we’re probably a bigger company than we are," Heine said.

During the pandemic, Kalsec was approached by food companies that were unable to procure ingredients from their usual suppliers, said Mark Staples, executive director of marketing. "As a family, private company we can do things that public, larger companies can't," said Staples, a former Kellogg & Co. executive. "It was really kind of empowering and exciting to see that."

Another differentiator is Kalsec's B Corp certification, which signifies a company's commitment to social and environmental performance standards. According to Kalsec, it is among fewer than 500 food companies in the food space to attain the certification, joining businesses such as Ben & Jerry's, Earthbound Farm, Once Upon a Farm, Danone and Plum Organics. The creation of the B Corp more than a decade ago gave Kalsec a way to formalize what it had been doing for years and talk about it with greater transparency, Heine said. 

B Corp certification growth across multiple industries comes as the spending power of health-conscious and environmentally aware millennials increases. This demographic is more likely to go out of its way to do business with companies that reflect its values. While Kalsec isn't directly using its B Corp certification as a selling point, it does pique the interest of customers when they hear about it.

"It also holds us accountable to the goals that we set within that space, and I think for customers it's becoming more and more important," Heine said. "It's gone from being 'that's interesting' to an expectation."

Nearly two out of three consumers say that ingredients have at least a moderate influence on their food and beverage purchases, according to research from the International Food Information Council (IFIC). Thirty percent say ingredients have a big influence, according to the survey, which was conducted with 1,054 adults in May 2021. Sixty-three percent of consumers said they were paying more attention to ingredient lists. 

Almost two-thirds of consumers say they try to choose foods made from clean ingredients, which the highest percentage define as “not artificial or synthetic” (22%), followed by “organic,” "fresh," “something they know is nutritious” and "natural." Almost half consider themselves as clean eaters, with “eating foods that aren’t highly processed” the top definition.

As the demand for clean label products has increased, the industry has struggled with how to define the term. This is as clean label has surpassed brand recognition as consumers' most important consideration when purchasing a food product. 

Figuring out what qualifies as clean label for consumers has been an ongoing process for food and beverage manufacturers eager to capitalize on the trend. Regulators have struggled to provide the industry with clarity around the term, leaving the industry with little guidance. 

A few trends are emerging to shed light on what clean label means to consumers. Natural flavors, preservatives, sweeteners and colors are “far preferred” over artificial versions, according to the IFIC research.

Roughly half of consumers say they avoid artificial sweeteners, colors, flavors and preservatives at least some of the time. One-quarter of consumers also strongly agree that they are avoiding chemical-sounding ingredients in foods and beverages. For more than one in four consumers, the primary motivation for avoiding chemical-sounding ingredients center around health concerns. 

Learning how consumers educate themselves about specific ingredients may help food companies better meet their needs. While 62% of consumers review a product’s ingredient list, more than half use front-of-pack labeling as a source of information, according to the IFIC research. 

As more consumers show a willingness to learn about ingredients and read labels, however, food manufacturers may have to invest more effort figuring out what qualifies as clean label and what doesn’t. Three in 10 consumers strongly agree that they are paying more attention to ingredient lists than they did five years ago while 26% strongly agree that they are prioritizing clean label ingredients. 

One of the biggest challenges for food manufacturers creating clean label products has been finding effective swaps for ingredients that are artificial or have chemical-sounding names. Twenty-one percent of shoppers are aiming to avoid what they perceive as potentially harmful effects of chemical-sounding ingredients while 18% are concerned about the potential side effects of unfamiliar ingredients, according to the IFIC survey. This has led to an uptick in products with minimal, simple and familiar ingredients.

In recent years, Big Food has attempted to swap out artificial ingredients for natural, but with mixed success. For example, after introducing natural hues for its Trix cereal in 2015, General Mills eventually resumed using artificial colors due to what it described as consumer demand.

As Kemin Industries watched the clean label trend take off, executives made the decision roughly 25 years ago to position the maker of preservatives and other specialty ingredients firmly behind natural offerings.

While the Iowa-based company will continue to make its synthetic products, popular among lower-priced brands aiming to keep costs low, the push among consumers toward healthier eating and preference for premium brands has given natural preservatives, in particular, a favorable tailwind. This gave Kemin the confidence to make the move after decades of focusing much of its innovation on chemically produced ingredients.

"Demand for clean label preservatives has increased over the last five to 10 years," said Courtney Schwartz, marketing director of the company's Kemin Food Technologies. "It is the focus when we go into meetings with all of our customers, the focus is how can we clean up these labels."

The natural food preservatives market was valued at $796.1 million in 2018 and is projected to top $1 billion by 2026, a compound annual growth rate of 3.7%, according to data from Allied Market Research. The data firm said demand for these ingredients is especially robust in North America, accounting for about 40% of the total natural food preservatives market share in 2018.

The market opportunities haven't gone unnoticed in the market.

Last year, Irish ingredients company Kerry Group acquired the clean-label, low-sodium preservatives specialist Niacet from private investment firm SK Capital for roughly $1 billion to gain access to its portfolio of conventional organic acids. The purchase came two years after Kerry purchased Biosecur Lab, a provider of natural antimicrobials made from citrus extracts.

And Netherlands-based ingredients company Corbion announced in 2020 it would invest in key growth areas such as natural food preservation, while looking to exit other parts of its business. 

Increasingly, all natural is a deciding factor for consumers when they contemplate what product to buy, a factor that has grown in importance during the ongoing pandemic. Research from the International Food Information Council released last June found four in 10 consumers seek out natural preservatives. 

“Consumers are definitely driving this. There's a bit of a conflict though when consumers say they're looking for ingredients that they recognize on labels versus what they're willing to pay," Schwartz said. "That puts the onus back on the food manufacturer to see what applications they want to convert first, and what makes the most sense for them to convert.”

Natural preservatives are incorporated into a wide swath of products, including meat, candy, bakery and snacks to preserve the natural characteristics of the offerings, prevent spoilage during shipping and increase the overall shelf life. The demand for natural preservatives has only increased as consumers have turned to snacking more and upped their consumption of food on the go. 

The most common go-tos in the better-for-you category include citric aid, which is derived from fruits like grapefruits and lemons; ascorbic acid, or vitamin C; vinegar; and rosemary extract. Vinegar, for example, is used to curtail the growth of bacteria and prevent spoilage. Rosemary extract is popular for delaying color and flavor loss in products such as snack bars, cookies, chips, nuts, dressings and sauces that have significant fat content; and citric acid is regularly incorporated to make it difficult for mold or bacteria to survive.

Overcoming obstacles

Whitney Linsenmeyer, an assistant professor in the department of nutrition and dietetics at Saint Louis University, said early versions of natural preservatives dating back thousands of years include salt and sugar. But with those natural food additives increasingly shunned by many people, it has put the focus on ingredient manufacturers to develop alternative better-for-you substitutes.

In many cases, it's a difficult task riddled with challenges that can take researchers years to overcome.

Natural preservatives sometimes require a larger amount to achieve the same effect as their synthetic counterparts.

The problem is upping the quantity used to achieve the same shelf life as synthetics can negatively impact the flavor, forcing ingredient makers to find workarounds. Flavor can be more easily masked in something like a spicy sausage when a potent natural preservative is added, but in frozen chicken nuggets that often command a shelf life of up to 18 months, changes in how it tastes are less forgiving.

Kemin, for example, discovered that blending green tea extract with its rosemary extract slowed down the oxidation process and the rancid flavors that it creates. The pairing of the ingredients not only boosts the antioxidant protection but reduces the amount of rosemary that's needed in products such as sausages.

Another hurdle is not only discovering natural preservatives that do the intended function, but producing them in a large enough quantity and for an attractive price to convince a large CPG maker to include them in one or more of their mass-produced brands. 

“People look at the cost before they even start investing money in an application. And if the cost position can never get in line with what they think they're going to need it to be, they won’t embark on that application’s development," said Casey Lippmeier, vice president of innovation at Conagen. "That restricts the hunger for doing this kind of research.”

Conagen, which uses fermentation and enzymes to recreate molecules found in nature, commercialized, along with a partner, rosmarinic acid valued for its antioxidant and antimicrobial properties. 

The ingredient, which is an active component found in rosemary extract, is different from its parent in that it's odorless and tasteless. The lack of these attributes is especially valuable when a beverage maker, for example, wants to create a strawberry drink but doesn't want the distinctive taste of rosemary. 

A challenge for rosmarinic acid in the past was that it was difficult to produce enough on a large scale, an obstacle that caused the price for it to surge and deterred some companies from using it. By creating more of the ingredient in a lab using natural processes, Lippmeier said it has not only lowered the cost "but opened up many more applications for which it will become available."

Meaningful strides in innovation during the last decade have expanded the availability of more clean label, natural preservatives available to food and beverage manufacturers. But in some cases like a value brand, it may never make economic sense to switch over to a more costly natural alternative if a manufacturer wants to maintain a specific price point.

In addition, Linsenmeyer said there are segments of the food space where synthetics continue to reign, most notably in products like chips or candy bars where an individual isn't turning to them to eat healthier in the first place.

"We know we're eating something as an indulgence," she said. "People don't tend to pay as close attention in those areas and therefore less industry change is reflected in that.”

While synthetic options are likely to remain widely used in some offerings, consumer demand, innovation and improvements in technology will provide further momentum for more clean-label preservatives.  

“It's definitely the future. It's not going to go away, and I think that we will just continue to get closer and closer at providing matches to those commonly used synthetics, and we will get better at that cost and use and sensory portion, too,” Schwartz said. "The fact that we've gotten to a point where we can provide great alternatives to those traditional chemicals at an economical price, I think, is really what is keeping the industry moving.”