Top 5 Things You Need to Know About Measuring the Color of Cookies

Accurate color measurement is critical to ensuring your cookies meet quality, aesthetic, and consistency expectations. Observing these five essential guidelines can help your facility achieve this goal.

1. Understand How Color Influences Consumer Choices

Whether puffy and chewy or thin and crispy, the color of the cookies you produce significantly influences consumer buying choices. Too light, and a customer may fear they're underbaked. Too dark, and consumers might perceive them as burnt. A mix of these extremes can lead to thoughts of poor quality control and dissuade a purchase or repeat buying.

2. Implement Measurement at Every Production Stage

From your oven temperature to the pans you use and the quality of your raw materials, many variables factor into cookie color. Proper caramelization occurs when you understand how these differences impact your goods, which entails measurement at every step. Implementing a proven, standardized color-measuring process at each stage helps you identify where challenges occur and improvement opportunities exist so you can reduce waste.

3. Maintain Color Consistency

Snack food manufacturing requires careful planning and resource optimization for maximum profitability. Developing a repeatable, controlled, and standardized approach is crucial to reach those goals. By following the same standards with each batch and production line, you can effectively maintain color consistency between batches and across multiple lines or facilities.

4. Follow Compliance Regulations

All food manufacturers and processors must comply with regulations enforced by the Food and Drug Administration. These include mandates in Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations and Current Good Manufacturing Practice (CGMP). Quality control initiatives are a crucial part of these regulations, underscoring the importance of capturing and documenting accurate color measurements.

5. Use an Advanced Measurement Solution Designed for Your Challenges

Traditional color measurement equipment is vulnerable to errors and measurement issues with irregular, textured, and nonuniform samples with occlusions. Conventional spectrometers make it challenging to get a consistent surface area for measurement or assure chip number and spacing. Their optics are also vulnerable to contamination or scratches, which can impact the integrity and accuracy of results.

Modern HunterLab spectrophotometers solve these issues objectively and scientifically. Our Aeros benchtop solution features innovations designed for the unique surfaces, shapes, and physical forms of cookies. Aeros includes a rotating platform capable of 35 measurements across 27.5 square inches.

For another in-line solution, consider our SpectraTrend® HT. This full-featured spectrophotometer offers simultaneous, real-time noncontact height and color measurements for additional time savings. It intelligently distinguishes the sample from backgrounds like conveyors, eliminating production bottlenecks with simple integration into existing workflows.

Both solutions eliminate messy cleanings between measurements and reduce cross-contamination and sensor damage potential with their no-contact designs. Each also includes the market's most comprehensive collection of industry scales and indices for unmatched application versatility.

Contact the HunterLab Experts for Solutions You Can Trust

For over 70 years, our spectrophotometers have been the snack food manufacturing industry's first choice. Explore all our solutions to find the ideal model for your needs, or connect with our experts online for ordering advice and pricing information.