17 November 2021
Primarily celebrated on 25th December, Christmas is a major event in countries around the world. It is a time to give gifts, see family and friends – and feast on food and drink.
Red is one of the traditional colors of Christmas and it can provide the perfect choice for seasonal food and beverage launches. Associated with traditional treats from mulled wine to candy canes, it can also bring excitement to a vast array of innovative yuletide treats.
EXBERRY® Coloring Foods are made from fruit, vegetables and plants and can be used to achieve fabulously festive reds for almost any application, creating endless opportunities for clean-label Christmas launches.
Transforming traditional treats
The classic red-and-white peppermint-flavor candy cane has a long association with the festive season. Today, it is estimated that nearly two billion candy canes are sold in the run-up to Christmas each year.1
In recent times, brands have been taking this nostalgic favorite beyond the candy category and into exciting new places, from beverages to savory snacks. The possibilities to create new twists with EXBERRY® reds are huge. For example, they can be used to turn a holiday cake roll into a giant candy cane with red velvet candy stripes and peppermint buttercream filling.
Gingerbread biscuits, meanwhile, are another treat traditionally enjoyed at Christmas and many families create full gingerbread houses for the holidays. EXBERRY® Coloring Foods can be used to create spectacular ‘ginger-red’ men for the holidays as well as providing red frosting and candies to transform the appearance of gingerbread houses.
Spirits of Christmas
For many, Christmas is a time to enjoy drinks with family and friends – and festive red shades are the perfect way to add some excitement.
In recent times, new colors and flavors have had a huge impact on the yuletide drinks category. Gins are proving especially popular, with brands launching red varieties with flavors from candy cane to Christmas spice. RTD cocktails with red berry flavors can also cater to the Christmas crowd.
Led by health-conscious Millennial and Gen Z consumers, a growing number of adults are now cutting back on alcoholic drinks. In the UK, one survey found that 46% of hosts aged between 18 and 34 offered low or no alcohol drinks to guests for Christmas in 2020 – up 16% since on the previous year.2
These shoppers are looking for sophisticated alternatives to enjoy during the Christmas holiday season. Red cranberry mocktails, alcohol-free mulled wines and winter spiced blackcurrant beverages can provide warming and festive drinks.
With consumers demanding clean and simple ingredients, EXBERRY® Coloring Foods made from raw materials such as carrots, chokeberries and hibiscus are the ideal way to liven up both alcoholic and non-alcoholic festive beverages.
Showstopping delights
Luxurious desserts are an important part of the Christmas experience – and red is a color that can deliver a true sense of chic sophistication. EXBERRY® can deliver intense red shades to berry jellies, providing a showstopping topping to a star-shaped panna cotta, or to create a classy cranberry tart that explodes with sugary sparkle and tang.
Red Coloring Foods can be used to add a sense of fun to festive treats, too, such as red bauble-themed macarons or Santa’s hat cupcakes with white frosting.
As these products’ red shades are achieved through a clean-label, plant-based coloring solution, it can also help remove some of that post-consumption guilt.
Plant-based perfection
Plant-based dishes have come a long way at Christmastime. While the nut roast was once the obvious choice, the growing demand for plant-based products means the range of appetizing options is growing all the time.
Products from red meat alternatives to vibrant beetroot wellingtons can provide the perfect plant-based centerpiece for the big feast. Streaky bacon substitutes can also be used to create vegan-friendly devils on horseback, while canapes such as fresh beetroot dips and tomato soup shots can add further visual excitement with powerful red shades.
EXBERRY® Coloring Foods are a vegan-friendly coloring solution that can be used for almost any plant-based application, providing appetizing shades while supporting the clean ingredient lists that modern shoppers expect to see.
Discover joyful reds with EXBERRY®
Red is a traditional Christmas color that can create the wow factor in almost any festive food and drink launch. EXBERRY® Coloring Foods can deliver joyful red shades with maximum consumer appeal as they are all made from non-GMO fruit, vegetables and plants using physical methods such as chopping, heating and boiling.
They are naturally free from any artificial ingredients and do not contain functional additives. Due to the way they are created, they can be described on the ingredient list in a way that is easy for consumers to understand, such as “Coloring Food (concentrate of sweet potato and carrot)” or “concentrates (sweet potato and carrot).”
The experts at GNT have more than four decades of experience creating spectacular food and drink using plant-based colors and can provide all the assistance you need to bring your Christmas launches to life. Get in touch with GNT and discover the power of Love Color Red.
1 Sunstar Strategic ‘Sweet but twisted – fun facts about candy canes’ (2020) 2 Tesco Christmas Report (2020)