Abstract

The use of natural pigments as food colorants has gained much interest from consumers, however, there arecurrently no standard validated ways of predicting the stability of natural colours, which is a problem when these coloursare added to food products with a long ambient shelf-life. This article will discuss the potential of accelerated tests for theassessment of colour stability in food products using a combination of elevated temperature (°C) and light storage conditions. The changes in colour characteristics were measured using a HunterLab colorimeter and the equations using L,a and b values for quantifying the overall colour change in a given product are covered. Considerations taken into account when performing accelerated shelf-life testing of natural colours are also given.