Suntava offers natural color selection

It began as an effort by insect scientists to fend off rootworms and other corn pests. Now, the Afton-based company Suntava aims to use corn to crack the burgeoning natural food coloring market.

The company has developed a coloring made from a proprietary strain of purple corn, a dye it hopes will increasingly make its way into beverages, yogurt, candy and other food products, as well as cosmetics.

The company is moving from the developmental stage to commercialization, and expects to crack the $1 million sales mark in 2012. Suntava has also found markets for its purple corn as grist for blue corn chips and other food products.

In fact, selling purple corn as a grain to make into flour currently provides the bulk of the company's sales. But extracting dye from corn "is the push of the company and most of the science has gone into color," said Bill Petrich, Suntava's chief executive officer.

Purple corn is a source of anthocyanin, a natural compound that imparts red and purple color. "The most compelling thing is that there is so much [anthocyanin] in this plant," Petrich said.

Suntava emerged from research by southwestern Minnesota entomologists Lee and Joann French. At their home base near Lamberton, the Frenches bred purple corn -- a longtime staple of the Peruvian diet -- in an attempt to find ways to vanquish bugs that hurt corn.

That research led to the realization of purple corn's potential for natural food colorings. "It was kind of serendipitous," Petrich said.

The Frenches own a piece of Suntava, and Lee is on the board. The firm's owners also include some Lamberton-area farmers who grow Suntava's purple corn -- all of it non-genetically modified -- under contract.

Petrich, a former Schwan Food executive, joined as CEO in 2007 as the dye research effort formally became a company. Petrich has an office in Afton, but Suntava has a lab in St. Paul. A contract manufacturer in northeastern Iowa makes its products.

Natural food colors are more expensive to produce than synthetic colors, which are primarily derived from petroleum. And it's more difficult to keep natural colors stable -- i.e. impervious to heat and light.

But there's a growing market for foods dubbed "natural." Whole Foods doesn't allow synthetic colors in the food its sells, and Trader Joe's bans them from its private-label products, which make up about 80 percent of its offerings.

A long-standing backlash against synthetic colors is also driving the natural color market, particularly in Europe. Opponents of synthetic colorings, citing studies, allege that they contribute to hyperactivity in children.

The European Union now requires foods with certain synthetic colorings to carry a warning label. Since no company wants a warning on its wares, many packaged food firms have switched to natural colors in some products in Europe, even though the same items here contain synthetic colors.

Last spring, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel said studies suggest that synthetic dyes may make hyperactivity worse in some children, but there isn't enough science to justify a warning label on food.

It would have been "amazing" for the natural food coloring business if the FDA had gone the other way, Petrich said. But the U.S. market is growing at a strong clip even without government mandates.

Suntava extracts anthocyanin from purple corn through a steeping process, kind of like making tea. The company sells the extract, which is purple, to bigger food coloring companies, which in turn sell an arsenal of dyes to food makers.

The grain left after anthocyanin extraction -- still a purpleish color -- can be made into corn flour. So Suntava sells the byproduct, which is eventually turned into corn chips and breakfast cereal. The company also sees a market for purple corn prior to anthocyanin extraction -- a health food play.

Anthocynanin is rich in antioxidants, dietary substances, including some nutrients, that may help boost immunity. It's the same stuff that gives blueberries their antioxidant kick.

Suntava is supplying a Wisconsin snack maker, which plans this winter to launch an antioxidant-rich blue corn chip. Eventually, Suntava hopes to develop a powdered, concentrated form of anthocyanin that could be used in dietary supplements. "It has some phenonomal health properties," Petrich said.

Mike Hughlett • 612-673-7003