Food with colouring properties for clean-label products

Harvest season means high season for GNT's plant in the town of Heinsberg nearby Aachen: For example, by mid September, contract farmers will harvest and deliver the black carrot, true to the motto: early in the morning still in the soil, later the same day in the processing plant.

GNT works 20+ tonnes per hour of the old variety which, having been back-bred by the company's own agricultural engineers, gives a sweet and vividly coloured sap.

Time is of the essence here as large quantities of the fresh root vegetable must be processed at once. That's why the work processes in the Heinsberg plant are state-of-the-art and interlinked with one another. This already begins at the point of delivery: The trucks delivering the carrots are unloaded automatically with pushers that shove the carrots right onto the conveyor belt, which in turn advances them to the production plant. No need for cleaning, as this step is carried out right after the vegetables are harvested. Next, the carrots are shredded and boiled, and the resulting liquid mush is concentrated into a food with colouring properties. At this point, the solid portion - the so-called pulp -has already been removed to be recycled as animal feed.

But back to the carrots: At the end of the process when the colouring food is completely boiled down, i.e. has been deprived of all surplus water, the product it is packaged for later use. All preparation processes are purely physical in nature and use no synthetic ingredients - which is also what makes GNT's colouring foods so special.

Alongside carrots, the company processes quite a number of other fruits, vegetables and edible plants, with an annual production output of 6,000 tonnes of colouring foods. Overall, contract farmers grow more than 20 different varieties, with the cultivation being supervised by the company's own agricultural engineers. GNT accompanies the farmers during seeding, growth and harvesting to ensure traceability. Global G.A.P., Global Good Agricultural Practise is a mandatory requirement. The yearly output is enough to colour 25 billion servings of food and drinks, says GNT.

Also, in order to retain a degree of independence from harvest seasons and be able to deliver any desired colouring food anywhere in the world, GNT makes semifinished products in the Heinsberg plant, These are deep-frozen and stable for years until further processing. The large inventory is a strong point because it allows GNT to respond to customer requests the whole year round and ensure a high degree of availability.

In addition, manufacturers contacting GNT for colouring foods can tap the company's comprehensive know-how: which colour to choose for which application? There are 400 colours that can be mixed. Experts at the Aachen plant in the Low Countries develop new products, perform stability tests, recommend colour matches, and deliver solutions tailor made to suit individual needs. GNT's own competence centre offers all-inclusive technical support in the form of workshops, seminars and product development - always with an eye on the new food legislation, because that's a critical asset of GNT's colouring foods: They don't need to be declared on food packaging. At the EU level, colouring foods are foods with colouring properties rather than food additives requiring an E number. Unlike artificial or natural colorants, which must be approved and marked, they are ideal for the production of so-called "clean-label products", in other words, additive-free foods. This is a key aspect as consumers nowadays are paying more and more attention to such additives and look for products that are as "natural" as possible.