HunterLab has announced a multi-pronged snack food campaign from October 18 through January 10 to increase awareness of the importance of color quality in food. For over 70 years, HunterLab has helped products like chips/crisps, cheese puffs/balls, and roasted nuts keep reliably vibrant colors—allowing manufacturers to reproduce brands perfectly and consistently with each batch. Inventors of the foundational Hunter L, a, b values used in global spectrophotometry, HunterLab provides full spectrum color-measurement technology for food production and many other industries.

"Consistency of color is a vital concern to the food industry, with snack foods in particular," said Paul Barnes, sales manager, HunterLab. "It's a well-studied fact that customers are drawn to bright, cheery colors in the supermarket. Those colors remind us of nature and are usually associated with flavor, nutrition, and ripeness. Color serves to satisfy a hard-wired function in our brain: we all know what spoiled food 'looks' like, and we gravitate toward the 'fresh.' Color is the first way that consumers choose the food they will eat."

Measuring color accuracy is a complicated process, especially with foods that are textured and folded, or food that goes through multiple processes like frying and roasting. Whether companies need a powerful and reliable in-line unit, or the portable precision of a mobile spectrophotometer, HunterLab can handle color analysis for chips, cheese puffs, roasted nuts, cookies, crackers, pretzels, and much more: 

• SpectraTrend HT: The definitive tool for in-process, top-down, in-line color measurement; provides continuous monitoring with two critical sensors: precise color and height. High-speed, non-contact measurements with rapid-fire illumination, measuring as many as five times per second. Lab-to-line correlation to minimize confusion. Large, easy-to-read, easy-to-operate display.
• Aeros: From auto-height positioning sensors to large, rotating platforms, durable displays, and intelligent communication technologies, the Aeros is the perfect portable color analysis companion. One touch automatically measures 27.5 square inches in 5 seconds. And no-contact means no setup or cleanup. Perfect for measuring non-uniform, textured surfaces on-the-go.

"In the past, food producers have relied on Color Reference Charts to help them maintain control and consistency," said Bob Weaver, president and COO, HunterLab. "But lighting, object background, color sensitivity, an observer's age or memory, along with a host of other x-factors all make color charts a flawed system at best. Using the science of spectrophotometry is the only way to ensure near-perfect color consistency, every single time."