Abstract

• Natural colour, a kind of high-quality natural dye, has a great interest as an alternative colourant to use in food products. This work aims to design a strategy for the preparation of free-flowing colour powder from dried capsicum by encapsulating the capsanthin (colour compound) with the coating material. In this work, firstly, 72.63% of capsaicin (piquancy) was eliminated using 0.1 M sodium hydroxide solution. The piquancy-eliminated capsanthin colour compound was extracted under various conditions to optimize the extraction process. The colour value and capsanthin content were calculated by the ASTA analytical method and Beer-Lambert Law respectively, using the absorbance measured at the wavelength 460 nm throughout this research. Additionally, the microencapsulation process of oily-capsicum paste was implemented by coating with gum arabic (GA) on the oily-capsicum particles to improve the appearance and ease of handling. The colour value and capsanthin content of encapsulated powder are 143.17±3.46 and 22.89±0.44 mg g -1 . The solubility of encapsulated powder was found 100% in water. The resultant data have proved that this colour could have a natural colouring material giving an added value to the various food products. Therefore, this capsicum colour can be used in the food industry as an alternative to synthetic dye.