I'm definitely in the artificially coloured "white" chocolate sucks camp. There is quite a lot of subconscious psychology associate with food procurement choices.Stick a blue bar with a white bar and see which one you sell. I'm betting > 4 white sales per blue. BUT a blue bar will be bought by some one, and are they influential?

Lana,

Would you please share from where are you getting vegetable food coloring transfer sheets.

I print my own transfer sheets and would much prefer using natural dyes (inks) than the chemically processed ones I use now. Thanks

Scott;

Your post prompted me to call my contact at the CFIA, and ask her. In Canada, the definition of white chocolate is silent on color, but defines specific ingredients that can be included. Coloring is not one of them, and therefore not allowed.

I can however preclude the term "chocolate" with pretty much whatever I like, as long as the recipe falls within the definition of white chocolate. I could call it Blue Chocolate if I like.

Having said that, she also brought up the question of color in the first place, given that we're artisinal, and people are looking for more "natural" products these days. It looks cool and the feedback right now is about 50/50, but the non-color fans have a pretty compelling argument that blue chocolate doesn't look natural.

This has been a good exercise. Keep your opinions coming!

Cheers.

Brad

In the US, the standard of identity for "white chocolate" requires that it "be free of coloring material" (21 CFR 163.124(a)). Might be worth checking, if you haven't already done so, whether similar regulatory constraints are in place in Canada before deciding on what to call the product, how to label it, etc.

On the merits, I'd have no interest in buying a colored chocolate bar, unless the coloring was incidental to the inclusion of a natural ingredient chosen for flavor (e.g., achiote).

I never thought of that. Thanks!

I do remember reading some literature once which suggested colour can change a persons "taste". Basically they coloured a neutral flavour yellow and (from memory) something like 1/4 of the sample said they tasted a lemon flavour. It might be worth doing some checking on how flavour can be impacted by colour - you wouldn't want the wrong impact!!

I think this is interesting too.

What about coloured flavoured white chocolate bars? The idea of a bright yellow banana flavoured white chocolate bar sounds very tasty to me right now.

Thanks for the comments so far. They're great!

For those of you who haven't written anything yet, Please help!!! If you think that colored white chocolate sucks, please tell me! This is what product testing is all about - getting feedback whether good, bad, or ugly.

Thanks in advance.

Brad

Have you tried black? Or to be really ironic - brown? Brown white chocolate...now there's a thing!

I like it! Some things to keep in mind, though,are that colour influences how people perceive the taste of something and how much of your demographic are those that frown on food colourings. It seems to be a big thing here (Australia)as food colouring compounds (natural or not) can supposedly affect behaviour in childern.

Cool idea though, you could play on the influence the colour has on how people taste by having additives, whether ground in orimbedded in the chocolate, that link with the colour?

I know... It sounds like a caption of Dr. Seuss Chocolate! Haha!

I've been trying to do things a little different than everyone elseand now that we make our own white chocolate, I asked myself why white chocolate has to be white. After all, the whipped cream on our drinking chocolate is blue and people love it!...

So, I'm asking those of you out there in Chocolate Land to provide your unabashed opinions of the look of our new (and amazing tasting) "White" chocolate bars. The research has begun and the color (if any)has yet to be finalized. One important note: IF we choose to leave the color "white", it isn't actually a true white due to the fact that the vanilla beans we use change the color to more of a beige...

By the way, the color is one of our "Standard" shop colors.

Cheers and thanks for your input - the good, bad and ugly!

updated by @brad-churchill: 03/30/16 22:38:19