“As [a major] supplier of synthetic colors, it often catches people by surprise that we offer natural colors,” he says. “We have a complete product line of both, and bring our full technical application capabilities when using natural colors. We focus on the needs of customers, and are not biased towards synthetics or naturals.”
For example, Sensient recently introduced a vegetable juice color extract made from black carrot extract. It is targeted to replace grape skin extract and grape juice concentrate. “Compared to those two products, the black carrot extract has improved light and heat stability. It is kosher and you can't get kosher, grape skin extract,” explains Stonecipher.