Producing and distributing white sugar requires special care and attention to color, processing, and distribution. Learn how to stay within regulatory guidelines with the help of HunterLab equipment.
READ What Is Haze in Liquids and How Can I Measure It Accurately?
Why Measure the Color of White Sugar?
White sugar originates only through a long process of refining, leading to that bright white color consumers expect. It starts as molasses, and as you process and refine it, it becomes lighter in color until it's white, meaning it's free of impurities and anything that may add excess color.
If you process more than just white sugar in your facility, you may stop many times along the refining process to build stock for the rest of your products. Either way, ensuring your final product is as white as possible is crucial to gaining consumer favor and trust in your brand.
ICUMSA Sugar Color Standards
With sugar, color measurement is about more than fitting consumer preferences. The International Commission for Uniform Methods for Sugar Analysis (ICUMSA) is a regulatory body detailing the standards sugar processors must meet to qualify their sugar at a certain purity level.
The more processed sugar is, the less light it is able to absorb. Knowing this, ICUMSA developed a testing protocol by assigning numerical ratings to sugar based on how much light it absorbs. For example, while pure white sugar will rate somewhere around 50, brown sugar averages a score of 1,000. Using this scale requires manufacturers to use a quality color measurement tool such as a colorimeter or spectrophotometer.
Spectrophotometers for White Sugar Color Measurement
Though both colorimeters and spectrophotometers can measure sugar based on ICUMSA standards, spectrophotometers offer much more in data collection and specific measurements. At HunterLab, we believe in working with the best equipment available, which is why our collection of spectrophotometers for white sugar goes above and beyond typical equipment, allowing you to collect the most precise information and imitate it through every refining process.
Consider Vista, our premier tool to measure the color of sugar alongside haze percentage and ICUMSA score. With just one touch, you'll have a wealth of information that's easy to interpret with our smart user interface. You can also explore ColorFlex L2, another one of our tools that measures color as perceived through human eyes and provides exact measurements using any of the most common color measurement codes.
For ongoing analysis of a single sample, try the UltraScan VIS to measure product color changes without device variability.
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Request a Quote Today
See why HunterLab has become a leading name in white sugar color measurement and food industry consistency nationwide. Request a quote on one of our spectrophotometers, and we'll give you an overview and ensure you're ready to get to work as soon as our equipment arrives.
