Colourants

Colourants (US: colorants) are additives that give a food a particular colour, and their defining feature is that they exist for the human buyer's eye, not for the animal: they offer no nutritional benefit whatever to the dog or cat. This is the key point owners often miss. Dogs and cats do not choose food by its colour the way people do, and indeed they see colour quite differently from us, so the bright reds, browns and greens of some kibbles and the meaty hues of some wet foods are purely a marketing cue aimed at the person doing the shopping. Colourants can be synthetic dyes, often carrying E numbers and azo-dye names familiar from human food, or natural pigments such as those from plants. Because they serve no purpose for the animal and synthetic dyes attract consumer concern, many premium brands deliberately omit added colourants altogether and present this absence as a quality and transparency signal on the pack. Where they are used, their inclusion is governed by feed-additive regulation with authorised lists and limits (EU additive regulation). On a label, colourants appear among the additives, by name or E number, and their presence or absence is a small but telling indicator of a brand's positioning, much like the choice between synthetic and natural [tocopherols](/glossary/tocopherols) or the use of [palatants and flavourings](/glossary/palatants-and-flavourings). See the [Petipedia glossary](/glossary).

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