“Things like turmeric and beets and spinach and all the things in nature that provide such vibrant color. These are the ways that we color our ice cream.”
Chris McKellar is the owner of Love’s Ice Cream and Chocolates, making treats from scratch, by hand, with organic, seasonal ingredients and a mission to make food from food, not synthetic chemicals.
“Our eyes are naturally wired to be drawn to colorful things, so I do think that using some color in the food is important for the experience.”
Savvy customers understand natural colorants may be more muted.
“Our mint chip, we used to always make it without green and now we decided that green does appeal to people even though mint doesn’t impart any green to the ice cream, its white. It's just become something that consumers associate with mint so we decided that we would use a little bit of spinach to pull out the green.”
McKellar says his company’s success shows businesses can make appealing products with what nature offers.
“I think the trend is going in a great direction. This is the first piece of it and, I think, a great way to start. I mean the colors that are approved by the FDA are artificially derived from petroleum. That's not food and there's no reason why we need to be eating that.”
