HunterLab Helped a Leading American Snack Company Measure Surface Appearance Without Grinding

How to Measure the Color of Snack Food Without Grinding It

If you’re in the snack food business, you already know how much appearance matters. Consumers eat with their eyes first. When it comes to jerky, meat sticks, and other shelf-stable snacks, color consistency is critical. But measuring that color accurately is a real challenge.

Traditional color checks often require grinding the product, destroying its appearance in the process. This method is slow, subjective, and doesn't reflect the product consumers see on the shelf.

One leading American snack company decided to solve that problem. They found their answer in the HunterLab Aeros.

Why Color Consistency Matters

Color does more than make food look good. It sends a message about quality, freshness, and brand identity. A rich, even color tells customers the product was made with care. In contrast, snacks that appear too pale, too dark, or inconsistent can raise doubts about quality or shelf life.

For meat snacks like jerky and sticks, color impacts:

• Roast quality. Uniform color indicates controlled cooking or smoking
• Export compliance. Many markets require products to meet defined color tolerances
• Brand trust. Shoppers expect their favorite snacks to look the same every time

The Old Method: Grind and Guess

Many manufacturers still use ground-sample chroma meters for color checks. That approach requires:

• Grinding the product
• Filling a cuvette with the sample
• Running the test
• Cleaning up afterward

The whole process can take up to ten minutes per sample. Worse, it only measures internal color. It does not represent what consumers see. Operator techniques also vary, leading to inconsistent data between shifts or sites.

The snack company needed something faster, more repeatable, and better aligned with surface appearance. They wanted to measure finished products as-is, without grinding.

The Better Method: Non-Contact Color Measurement with Aeros

The HunterLab Aeros solved the problem.

Aeros is the world’s only smart non-contact, port-down spectrophotometer that measures the color of non-homogeneous products. There is no grinding and no prep. Just place the sample on the rotating tray and measure.

Key Features

• Auto height adjustment ensures accurate readings, even on uneven products
• Industry’s largest rotating sample platform 5 seconds, 35 measurements, 27.5 square inches of sample measured
• EasyMatch Essentials software provides full color analysis
• Connectivity options USB and Ethernet connectivity let users export results to LIMS, ERP, or print reports

This system provides fast, objective color data on the exact surface your customers see.

Real Results from a Leading Snack Brand

During a trial in their own facility, the snack company tested Aeros with their actual products. The improvements were immediate:

• Measurement time fell from five minutes to under ten seconds
• L a b* repeatability** improved from ΔE of 2 to 0.3
• Sample prep time was eliminated
• Data reflected the true surface appearance of the finished product

But the success wasn’t just about the technology. It was also about the HunterLab experience.

From day one, the HunterLab team worked closely with the customer’s quality and R&D teams to understand their unique production environment. Our applications experts helped develop customized methods tailored specifically to their jerky and meat stick formats. These methods accounted for product texture, variability, and presentation, ensuring that the data collected was both meaningful and repeatable.

As part of the trial, HunterLab provided the opportunity to test real, in-market products directly in the customer’s own facility. This hands-on approach allowed their team to see Aeros in action, validate results with their current processes, and build trust in the technology before committing to a purchase.

“We now have consistent, repeatable color data for our actual products,” one team member said. “We eliminated grinding and improved alignment with brand standards.”

That partnership-driven approach delivered more than data — it gave the customer confidence. By combining expert technical support with on-site validation, HunterLab helped eliminate uncertainty, accelerate onboarding, and set the customer up for long-term success.

Trusted Color Science, Built for Real Products

Aeros is built for modern food production environments. It captures color directly from the surface of real, irregular products. With no contact and no destruction of the sample, it provides a true representation of product appearance. This enables faster decisions, tighter process control, and more consistent results in color-critical applications.

Ready to Try It?

If you're ready to eliminate grinding, speed up your process, and improve color consistency, it’s time to try Aeros. Our team will help you run real tests on your own products so you can see the results for yourself.

Contact HunterLab today to schedule a demo or request more information.