How Color Measurement Ensures Plant-Based Burgers Look Like Real Meat

Researchers and development teams experiment with many plant-based burger ingredients to achieve the most impressive vegan meat products. After the development process, how does plant-based meat look real? Development teams rely on methods like color measurement to create the products you see on the shelves.

The process for developing plant-based protein has to consider two identifying visual factors — texture and color.

Understanding the Color of Plant-Based Meat

You may think of visual factors as something highly subjective, especially since plant-based meat replicates something so familiar. But color is the exception. While color seems like a subjective concept, the shades and hues we perceive are based on how much light an object absorbs or transmits.

Spectrophotometers are designed to measure the absorption and transmission of light wavelengths in a given object. When measuring a sample with a spectrophotometer, the device will generate a dataset based on the level of transmission and absorption for each color.

What does this mean for plant-based burger ingredients? Developers can create a recipe for color based on the dataset they generate from real meat. During the research and development phase, researchers can test samples of vegan meats and compare the dataset to the real meat measurements. When they find a dataset that closely matches, they can repeatedly use those ingredients in plant-based products to emulate meat color.

Methods for Texture in Plant-Based Meat

A large portion of development processes for vegan meats includes trial and error with various combinations of ingredients to achieve the best possible results. Texture has to replicate meatiness without muscle tissue. Scientists have included various types of plant protein, like soy and pea, to recreate that dense, chewy texture we associate with meat.

Creating texture also involves the procedures used to process the plant protein. High-moisture extrusion is one of the processes manufacturers use to create a fibrous texture in plant proteins that is more similar to ground meat. When people take that first bite, they can see a remarkably similar recreation of meat with plant-based products.

Find Color Measurement Solutions With HunterLab

At HunterLab, we carry a range of spectrophotometers and color measurement equipment to support the plant-based burger development process. With this equipment, research teams can create consistent coloring processes for vegan meats that support product success and more effective quality control in manufacturing. Get in touch with us today to learn more about our products and how we serve plant-based meat manufacturers.