“If grilled vegetables are the selling point on your label, using a process that [physically] marks into the grilled vegetable is very important for [appearance],” says Allison Rittman, corporate chef for Charlie Baggs Inc. (Chicago), a foodservice consulting company.
Some companies apply coloring that appears as grill marks onto their products. However, strenuous processing techniques sometimes remove imitation grill marks, and the natural flavor nuances that develop when a food is actually flame-roasted or grilled are missing, also. On the other hand, the addition of colored stripes is a very inexpensive way to get grill marks, and is acceptable for foodservice products such as burgers.