colorant titanium dioxide suppliers

Wegman’s puts titanium dioxide in its Original Macaroni and Cheese. Campbell’s Healthy Request Chunky Chicken Corn Chowder has it, as does Food Club’s Chunky New England Clam Chowder. Marzetti uses the color agent to brighten its Cream Cheese Fruit Dip. Dairy products usually don’t need titanium dioxide to look white, but Kroger has decided to add titanium dioxide to its Fat Free Half-and-Half. And titanium dioxide isn’t only in especially white or brightly colored foods: Little Debbie adds it to Fudge Rounds and many other products. According to the Food Scores database maintained by Environmental Working Group, more than 1,800 brand-name food products have titanium dioxide on their ingredients list. That said, it can still lurk as an unspecified “artificial color,” or labels might simply say “color added.”

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Suppliers play a crucial role in transforming these raw materials into usable titanium dioxide. They employ specialized extraction techniques such as the Becher process for ilmenite or the sulfate process for rutile and anatase, which involve chemically treating the ore to produce titanium dioxide. In the sulfate process, for example, the ore is treated with sulfuric acid to form titanyl sulfate, which is then calcined to yield titanium dioxide.

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