Eating with your eyes

During last week’s Food Matters Live event, which took place in London, I visited GNT’s stand to learn more about its Exberry brand, which offers a wide range of colouring concentrates made from fruit and vegetables.

Tapping into consumer demand for natural products and easy to read labels, the products add bright and vibrant shades to almost every food and beverage category, simply by colouring food with food.

At the stand, attendees were taught a vital lesson in colour, with a taste test designed to show just how important it is.

Three beverages were prepared – one red (which was later revealed to be flavoured with lemon and lime), one yellow (which was in fact cherry flavour) and one orange (which was flavoured with blackcurrant). Participants were asked to taste each one and make a note of what flavour they believed they tasted. Participants were then blindfolded and asked to repeat the exercise again.

Showing the extent to which we ‘eat with our eyes’, participants fared better whilst blindfolded. In my own test, I identified one flavour out of three correctly in the initial test, and three out of three whilst blindfolded.

The idea of taste perception changing with different colours is something that manufacturers have played with over the years.

Heinz launched various colours of its famous tomato ketchup product in 2000, including green and purple. Following their initial success, however, the products were discontinued in 2006.

Wrigley has also played with the senses, launching Skittles Confused? during its UK brand re-launch in 2013. Unlike original Skittles, in which a yellow shell dictates a lemon flavour and a red shell a strawberry flavour, the coloured shells of Skittles Confused? contain different flavours – and never what it is expected. A green Skittle may be cherry flavour in one bag and peach in another, for example.

Unlike green ketchup, the mismatched Skittles are still proving popular. It will be interesting to see if the novelty wears off over the years as it did in the case of Heinz.