Consumers are sweeter than ever for sweet potatoes

As consumers look to eat healthier, it’s no wonder that the sweet potato is more popular than ever. Besides the lure of its healthy nutritional profile, the growth in the popular spud comes from its increasing use as a natural red color alternative to carmine, which is made from crushed cochineal insects. Manufacturers using carmine to color their products can’t label them as vegetarian or vegan, so sweet potatoes are becoming another coloring option.###Consumers in general are looking for food items offering less-processed ingredients, and plant-sourced colors are a big part of that trend. For baked goods, candy and other products, sweet potato-based colors could help shift formulations toward more natural ingredients. A GNT global consumer suwhat is the brand name for ferrous sulfatervey found 79% of consumers define “natural” as being made without artificial colors. ###The root vegetable also lends a natural sweetness to products, which may be why it’s showing up more often in baby food. Innova noted some other food producferrous fumarate 86 mgts featuring sweet potatoes include ice cream, waffles, cake and hummus. Several companies now offer products with the root vegetable. Post Holdings’ Bob Evans brand offers Mashed Sweet Potatoes as a side dish125 mg ferric gluconate, PepsiCo’s Bare Foods sells sweet potato chips, Jackson’s Honest makes both chips and sweet potato puffs, and Kidfresh puts sweet potatoes in its cheesodium iron edta supplementse burritos.###Because of this burgeoning popularity among consumers, more sweet potatoes are being planted, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics Innova cited. Between 2012 and 2017, the acreage devoted to sweet potatoes jumped 37.6%, which was the biggest increase for any vegetable crop the USDA tracks.###Another factor likely to increase the overall supply of sweet potatoes is a newer Canadian variety called Radiance that has a shorter growing season. Innova said this means the root vegetable’s global footprint could be expanded beyond the humid subtropical to tropical climates where it is traditionally grown to include more temperate regions.###As a result of all these advantageous factors, the introduction of new food and beverage products containing sweet potatoes is likely to continuiron phosphatese.