Annatto: The Colourant You Do Not Need to Worry About

It makes cheddar orange and butter yellow, it sits right where carmine would sit on a label, and it is a seed. Knowing the difference saves you from avoiding the wrong things.

Colourings are the part of an ingredient list where genuine problems cluster. Carmine is crushed insect. Shellac is an insect resin. Some colours are carried in alcohol. So it is reasonable to arrive at 'annatto' with your guard up.

Put it down. Annatto is a seed, and it is one of the oldest food colourings in continuous use.

What it is

Annatto comes from the seeds of the achiote tree, Bixa orellana, native to tropical Central and South America. The seeds are covered in a waxy red-orange coating, and the pigments — bixin and norbixin — are extracted from it.

It has been used as a colourant, a spice and a body paint across the Americas for centuries, and the Caribbean and Latin American cooking that uses achiote paste is using the same thing in less processed form.

Where you will meet it

• Cheddar and other orange cheeses — the colour is entirely cosmetic. Cheddar is naturally pale; the orange is a centuries-old convention.
• Butter and margarine.
• Smoked fish and some processed meats.
• Snack foods, crackers, cereals and baked goods.
• Custard, ice cream and yellow desserts.
• Cosmetics and some pharmaceuticals.
• As E160b on European labels.

The extraction question

The one technical point worth stating, because it is the only place a question could arise. Annatto is extracted in different ways depending on the intended use:

1. Oil-soluble annatto — extracted into a vegetable oil, typically for fat-based products. No issue.
2. Water-soluble annatto — the pigment is treated with alkali to form norbixin salts, which dissolve in water. No issue.
3. Solvent-extracted annatto — propylene glycol, or occasionally ethanol, used as an extraction solvent. Propylene glycol is not an intoxicant and is not a concern. Where ethanol is used as a processing solvent, the scholarly treatment is the same as for vanilla extract carriers and flavour solvents: the majority position is that a solvent removed or present at trace levels does not carry the ruling, while a cautious minority prefers to avoid it.

What annatto is not

The practical value of this page is in the contrast, so here are the colourings that sit in the same place on a label and do not have the same answer:

• Carmine, cochineal, carminic acid, Natural Red 4, E120 — derived from the cochineal insect. Scholars differ, and many certifying bodies treat it as not permissible. This is the one people mean to avoid when they get nervous about colourings.
• Shellac, confectioner's glaze, E904 — a resin secreted by the lac insect, used as a glaze on sweets and coated tablets.
• Some beta-carotene preparations — the pigment is plant or algae derived, but gelatin is used as a carrier in some encapsulated forms.
• Caramel colour — plant-derived, and fine, though ammonia-process grades attract separate non-religious debate.
• Titanium dioxide — mineral, permissible, and subject to its own safety argument in the EU.
• Annatto — seed. Fine.

The allergy footnote

Annatto is one of the few natural colourings with documented allergic reactions, uncommon but real, ranging from hives to more serious responses. This has nothing to do with permissibility and is included because someone searching for 'annatto problems' deserves the accurate answer to the question they might actually have.

How we treat it

Annatto passes our screen without comment. Carmine, cochineal and shellac trigger a hold.

The reason to write a page about an ingredient that is fine is that avoiding the wrong things has a cost. Someone who has decided all natural colourings are suspect ends up avoiding cheddar and eating a sweet glazed with shellac — they have spent their caution in the wrong place, which is exactly what an unfocused screen produces.