Cereal Color Measurement

Cereals are a staple food item for most consumers, found in over 90% of households globally. Cereals are typically prepared from grasses such as wheat, oats, corn and other starchy grains or their edible seed or fruit such as buckwheat or grain amaranth. As with most food products, a consumer’s perception of the flavor of cereal is closely tied to its color. HunterLab was the first company to receive USDA approval for the instrumental evaluation of food color, and many of the world’s top producers of cereal products, including General Mills, Kelloggs, Purina, and Gilster-Mary Lee, rely on HunterLab solutions for color management and quality control of their products.

Cereal color measurement can be broken into two primary groups; “cereal” as a finished product, and the grains or raw materials cereal ingredients. In the former, the importance of color measurement is to ensure that the color meets with the expectations of the consumer. For the later, the importance is in controlling the grains and raw materials to ensure consistency throughout the supply chain.