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How to Achieve Consistent Color in Plant-Based Drinks

Posted on Sep 09, 2025 by HunterLab

What if your next plant-based drink could achieve stunning golden color—naturally, consistently, and without compromising shelf life? That vision just moved closer to reality.

A peer-reviewed study in Food Frontiers reveals how a one-step pH infusion of raw turmeric into soymilk delivered reliable, vibrant color. Using the HunterLab ColorFlex EZ spectrophotometer, researchers tracked L*, a*, b* values to evaluate and confirm the consistency of this natural process.

Please note: the ColorFlex EZ has now been upgraded to the ColorFlex L2. For a seamless transition and added benefits, you’ll find more details in the second half of this blog.

Key Findings from the Study

This study offers compelling evidence for a practical, clean-label solution:

94% curcumin transfer from raw turmeric into soymilk, with stable particle size and charge
Both curcumin–soymilk and turmeric–soymilk showed b* increases above 40 units versus plain soymilk, creating a distinct golden-yellow hue
Both freeze-dried curcumin–soymilk and turmeric–soymilk powders remained stable over a 30-day storage period at freezing temperature.

These results highlight how tristimulus color measurement enables effective monitoring of natural pigment integration across product lifecycles. More importantly, they demonstrate a path to achieving natural color in plant-based milk—a key priority for brands focused on clean-label innovation.

Why It Matters to HunterLab Customers

For Plant-Based Beverage Producers

The study provides a scalable route to functional pigment delivery. Use ColorFlex L2 to maintain color consistency across shelf life with simple benchtop quality control.

For Turmeric and Spice Processors

Validate raw turmeric batches without requiring purified extracts. ColorFlex L2 readings enable quick grading and premium positioning for buyers.

For Nutraceutical Brands

Support label claims of protein and curcumin co-delivery. Tristimulus color data confirm dose uniformity in ready-to-mix formulations.

For Food Science R&D Teams

Leverage a peer-reviewed protocol pairing pH encapsulation with tristimulus tracking. Reproduce or expand for other botanicals.

For Quality Labs and Co-Packers

Color shift is a primary indicator of curcumin degradation. Use ColorFlex L2 for quick pass/fail metrics before packaging.

Need Better Whole-Nut Roast Color Control?

Posted on Sep 09, 2025 by HunterLab

Export buyers notice inconsistencies—do you? Manufacturers often rely on ground samples and handheld chroma meters. This method fails to capture whole-nut appearance. A roast-level measurement that aligns with consumer expectations can elevate product consistency—especially for global export markets.

A slightly over- or under-roasted cashew can affect perceived quality, flavor, and brand trust. Yet many processors still rely on outdated, destructive color checks that don’t reflect what the consumer sees.

Let’s fix that.

Why Color Accuracy Drives Cashew Quality

Consumer confidence: Global buyers expect golden-brown uniformity. Irregular batches erode trust.
Export readiness: Color variation is a top rejection reason for U.S. and EU-bound shipments.
Flavor & texture proxy: Roast color is linked to browning index and sensory qualities.

The Problem with Ground Sample Methods

Inaccurate representation: Grinding mixes inner and outer nut layers, masking true surface color.
Prep variability: Operator technique affects grind consistency and packing.
Low throughput: Each test can take 8–10 minutes—including warm-up, grind, and tray prep.
Wasteful: Ground samples can’t be reused—costing time and raw materials.

What Is Haze in Liquids and How Can I Measure It Accurately?

Posted on Sep 09, 2025 by HunterLab

Clarity is a critical aspect of liquid product quality in many industries, and modern consumers combine it with color when evaluating whether to buy a product or trust a brand. As a result, scientifically and objectively quantifying haze is essential to achieving quality goals and maintaining customer satisfaction.

What Is Haze and How Does It Alter the Appearance of Liquids?

In its simplest definition, haze is scattering of light produced by small particles in a sample. Suspended particles within a liquid also scatter light, leading to turbidity — a cloudy, milky, or opaque appearance.

Transmission haze occurs in transparent goods and liquids, like clear plastic preforms or bottled water. As light passes through the sample, factors like surface texture imperfections and impurities scatter the energy.

Primary Causes of Haze in Liquids

In liquids, a natural interaction between proteins and polyphenols usually causes measurable turbidity. Other potential causes include poor-quality raw ingredients, such as infected barley used in beer brewing or particulate residues from filtering processes.

The Importance of Haze to Consumer Perceptions

Clarity is necessary in liquids to signify quality and safety.

Turbidity in beer can be either desirable or undesirable, depending on the consumer's preference. Many manufacturers continually aim to control turbidity in beer since its presence can negatively impact taste and shorten shelf life. Others use turbidity as a competitive advantage, crafting hazy IPAs that consumers perceive as more flavorful. Similarly, some winemakers prefer haze as a marker of authenticity and a natural by-product of fermentation.

Other liquids also rely on haze to meet consumer expectations or generate a favorable customer opinion. For example, a haze in fruit juices can spur more sales by promoting the perception that nutritional value is higher. Manufacturers can create the haze naturally or use additives to produce the intended result.

Things to Know About Measuring the Color of Vinyl Siding

Posted on Sep 09, 2025 by HunterLab

Consistent quality and aesthetics are paramount in the competitive world of building materials. For vinyl siding manufacturers, achieving consistent color across production batches is crucial for customer satisfaction and brand reputation.

Here at HunterLab, we offer state-of-the-art spectrophotometers, advanced quality control software and expert techniques to help you maintain color consistency throughout your vinyl siding production processes.

Understanding the Challenges of Measuring the Color of Vinyl Siding

Even slight color variations can lead to rejections, returns, and lost revenue. Visually assessing vinyl siding is not enough to achieve accurate, repeatable results and can lead to mismatched siding panels.

Measuring the color of vinyl siding presents unique challenges compared to other materials. Some of these challenges include:

Texture variations: Vinyl siding often has a textured surface that can affect light interaction. HunterLab's spectrophotometers have advanced features that can compensate for surface texture variations. They ensure accurate readings regardless of the siding's texture.
Large panel sizes: Larger panels magnify any variation in the manufacturing process, from raw material differences to pigment distribution and alterations occurring in storage. A spectrophotometer accurately quantifies color at every stage to help ensure consistent, precise results.

The Best Color Measurement System for Bath Bombs and Multi-Colored Soaks

Posted on Sep 09, 2025 by HunterLab

Because most bath bombs contain multiple colors, you need to use a color measurement system to ensure that the colors match and remain vibrant. Image Source: Pixabay user StockSnap

A bright fuschia bath bomb hits the water and immediately starts to froth. Long streams of pink, purple, and red leak into the water, coating the top of the bathtub in a thick layer of colorful bubbles. But as the bath bomb dissolves and shrinks, unexpected colors begin to appear, from deep blues to rich emerald greens. This surprise pop of color is what draws thousands of customers to bath bombs every year.

Unlike traditional bath salts and soaps, which are usually just one color, bath bombs can contain as many as a dozen different layers of color in a single package. For cosmetics manufacturers, this poses a challenge: how do you ensure that these colors will look appealing to customers, both before and after they hit the water? To solve this issue, you need an accurate color measurement system for your bath bombs and multi-colored soaks.

You’ll Need to Measure Color Twice

When you’re working with large batches of any commercial product, you need to ensure that your colors are consistent batch-to-batch. But a color measurement system for bath bombs has to measure more than just consistency of each ingredient; it also needs to measure how the colors interact with water and with the other colors in the mix. For instance, if you add too many similar-looking colorants into a bath soak, you will likely end up with a product that looks muddy rather than multi-colored. Similarly, even if your bath bomb looks perfect when it’s dry, its colors might not mix well together in the water or could be duller in appearance than you expected.
Without testing how your colors mix together in water, you might accidentally release a product that looks brown in tone after customers put it in the water. This is a common problem when making bath bombs because companies often like to mix a primary color with its complementary color, causing the mix to turn brown.1 However, you can counteract this if you use colorants that can’t interact with one another in water or if you carefully measure the colors you use to ensure that their final blend is an appealing new color. By measuring your colors twice (once during the dry, powdered stage, and again as a dissolved liquid sample), you guarantee that your bath bombs will look equally beautiful on the shelf as they do in the tub.

Some natural bath bombs and soaks contain solid materials or colorants that are less saturated than standard dyes. Image Source: Pixabay user Tomasz_Mikolajczyk

How Essential Oil Spectrophotometers Promote Quality Control in the Perfume Industry

Posted on Sep 09, 2025 by HunterLab

Essential oil spectrophotometers help you determine how pure an oil is based on its color, which in turn could impact how your perfume smells. Image Source: Flickr user sunny mama

The alluring aroma of a perfume might win over the heart of a picky customer, but experienced perfume manufacturers know that this is only one small part of what makes a particular scent so enticing. In reality, the perfume’s color also plays a major role in sales, and in some cases, can directly impact the scent of the perfume itself. After all, the quality of a perfume is only as good as the ingredients that went into producing it. If you want to ensure that the oils you use are absolutely pure and powerfully fragrant, you should consider investing in a spectrophotometer. Using this tool, you can make sure that each bottle of perfume looks identical and that you’re always using the best essential oils available.

Some essential oils, like sandalwood, will look darker in color and appear hazier than clear, brighter essential oils like lavender. Image Source: Flickr user Your Best Digs

ASTA Color and IC Color of Paprika and Oleoresin Spices

Posted on Sep 02, 2025 by HunterLab

Color is a critical quality component for spices like paprika. The American Spice Trade Association (ASTA) has sampling and measurement standards for paprika, and a spectrophotometer from HunterLab effectively quantifies paprika color values for quality assurance.

How Paprika and Oleoresin Spices Are Made

Paprika is obtained from the ripened, ground, and dried fruit pods of the Capsicum annuum species. The Capsicum annuum peppers used for paprika are sweet and mild with little to no capsaicin, which is a heat compound.

The Capsicum annuum plant is grown until its peppers are mature and have ripened to a red color. The fully ripened peppers are picked for paprika to give the spice its signature red color. The pepper seeds are removed, and the fruit pods are dried in the sun or specially constructed dryers. After drying, producers grind peppers into powder.

Oleoresin paprika — or paprika extract — is the oil-soluble extract obtained by extracting lipids and pigments from Capsicum annuum Linn or Capsicum frutescens fruits. The oleoresin comprises capsaicin, capsanthin, and capsorubin, giving the product a strong taste and odor. Oleoresin paprika is a natural dye that colors foods a deep red color.

Interested in a little light reading?

"How to Achieve Consistent Color in Plant-Based Drinks"

"Need Better Whole-Nut Roast Color Control?"

"What Is Haze in Liquids and How Can I Measure It Accurately?"

"Things to Know About Measuring the Color of Vinyl Siding"

"The Best Color Measurement System for Bath Bombs and Multi-Colored Soaks"

"How Essential Oil Spectrophotometers Promote Quality Control in the Perfume Industry"

"ASTA Color and IC Color of Paprika and Oleoresin Spices"

How to Achieve Consistent Color in Plant-Based Drinks

Key Findings from the Study

Why It Matters to HunterLab Customers

For Plant-Based Beverage Producers

For Turmeric and Spice Processors

For Nutraceutical Brands

For Food Science R&D Teams

For Quality Labs and Co-Packers

Need Better Whole-Nut Roast Color Control?

Why Color Accuracy Drives Cashew Quality

The Problem with Ground Sample Methods

What Is Haze in Liquids and How Can I Measure It Accurately?

What Is Haze and How Does It Alter the Appearance of Liquids?

Things to Know About Measuring the Color of Vinyl Siding

Understanding the Challenges of Measuring the Color of Vinyl Siding

The Best Color Measurement System for Bath Bombs and Multi-Colored Soaks

You’ll Need to Measure Color Twice

How Essential Oil Spectrophotometers Promote Quality Control in the Perfume Industry

ASTA Color and IC Color of Paprika and Oleoresin Spices

How Paprika and Oleoresin Spices Are Made