ABSTRACT
Natural colors present in a wide variety of plant sources, such as roots, seeds, leaves, fruits, and flowers, are principally due to the occurrence of one or more of the groups of color compounds, such as carotenoids, betacyanins, anthocyanins, and other flavonoids. Increasing consumer demand for natural food colors has led not only to their recovery from natural sources but also to the synthesis of nature-identical carotenoids, important to the food industry. Natural colors and their formulations find wide-ranging applications from foods to pharmaceuticals and from dyes to cosmetics. Global consumption of natural food colors is estimated to be more than $1 billion (U.S.) (Lashkari, 1999).
