IN Brief:
- Jungle Blue and Arctic Blue are now available in liquid formats alongside their established powders.
- Both products disperse without premixing and can be pumped directly into food and beverage production.
- Jagua fruit and spirulina provide blue shades that can also be blended into green and purple formulations.
Oterra has introduced liquid versions of its Jungle Blue and Arctic Blue natural colour systems, adding pumpable formats to products previously supplied as powders.
Jungle Blue is derived from Colombian jagua fruit, while Arctic Blue uses spirulina produced in a controlled indoor facility. Used alone, the products create blue shades; blended with other colours, they can support green and purple formulations.
Both liquids disperse without premixing and can be pumped or metered into production, reducing the dust generated during bag opening, weighing, tipping, transfer, and dry blending. Their potential applications extend across beverages, dairy, confectionery, bakery, snacks, and plant based foods.
The finished shade will still depend on pH, heat treatment, light exposure, water activity, other ingredients, packaging, and shelf life. Blue remains technically demanding because many naturally sourced systems lose intensity during heating, perform poorly in acidic products, or change shade when combined with minerals, proteins, and other colours.
Jungle Blue has been developed for acidic and heated applications where several natural blue ingredients encounter stability limits. Arctic Blue places spirulina into a liquid format intended to simplify factory handling, although each formulation will require testing under representative processing and storage conditions.
Converting a powder into a liquid alters more than the operator’s method of adding the ingredient. Pumps, pipework, storage containers, hygienic connections, agitation, and cleaning procedures must suit the product’s viscosity, stability, and microbiological characteristics.
Powders remain attractive because they can offer long storage life, concentrated transport, and flexibility across sites without fixed liquid handling equipment. Their disadvantages include dust, static, incomplete dispersion, localised colour concentration, operator exposure, and additional labour during weighing and premixing.
Format choice becomes a factory engineering decision
A liquid system can reduce manual handling and support automated recipe control. Metering equipment can deliver a programmed quantity directly into a batch or continuous process, improving repeatability while generating an electronic record of each addition.
Those gains depend on pump accuracy, calibration, line flushing, and the stability of the liquid during storage. Natural colour ingredients are often used at low levels, so a modest dosing error can create a visible shade difference across an entire production batch.
Blended shades add another layer of sensitivity. A green created from blue and yellow depends on both components maintaining the correct strength and ratio, while variation in one colour can move the finished product noticeably even when the total quantity remains unchanged.
Transport and storage economics will vary between formats. Water based liquids may weigh more and occupy greater container volume than an equivalent powder, while some formulations require controlled temperature or protection from light.
Cleaning can also become more demanding on shared lines because intense blue remains visible at extremely low concentrations. Pipework, seals, pumps, dead legs, and dosing nozzles must release the colour fully during cleaning to prevent carryover into pale or uncoloured products.
Natural ingredient suppliers are increasingly building commercial systems around extraction, standardisation, and application support rather than selling minimally processed raw material. Fruit side streams processed by Del Monte and Treatt undergo a comparable transition, with variable plant material converted into extracts capable of meeting repeatable beverage specifications.
Regulatory status must be assessed separately for each destination. Permitted uses, labelling language, maximum inclusion rates, and the legal treatment of individual colour sources differ between jurisdictions, so one global formulation may require several regional specifications.
Packaging will influence colour retention throughout shelf life. Transparent bottles and films increase light exposure, while oxygen in the headspace or permeating through the pack can accelerate fading or shade change.
Shelf life testing must therefore use the intended production process and final commercial packaging rather than a laboratory container. Heat treatment, filling temperature, headspace, closure performance, and storage conditions should all be represented.
Oterra has identified rapid growth in blue product development, with more than 10,000 food and beverage products containing blue colour launched during 2025, compared with around 6,000 in 2021. Confectionery, drinks, seasonal ranges, and visually distinctive products account for much of that expansion.
The liquid formats address the less visible production work behind those launches. A striking shade must be dosed accurately, dispersed evenly, cleaned from equipment, protected through storage, and repeated across factories and production dates.
Manufacturers will choose between liquid and powder according to throughput, storage, plant design, recipe complexity, and the frequency of colour changes. Oterra’s expanded range provides another route, although its commercial value will rest on reducing process steps and variation without increasing hygiene, logistics, or storage costs elsewhere.
