Why your flavour brief is wrong before it begins

There is a question I ask almost every food founder I work with. It's deceptively simple: "How did you choose this flavour?"

Most of the time, I'll hear something along these lines: "It feels premium." "It fits our brand." "Everyone on the team loved it." "It's on trend right now."

And to be honest, none of those answers are necessarily wrong. But none of them actually answer the question I asked. Because I'm not asking why the flavour fits your brand vision. I'm asking why you chose it for your target consumers. And that gap, between those two things, is where so many food and drink products fail.

If you're planning a new launch or thinking about reformulating, this might be the most useful thing you read before you brief anyone. And if you'd rather just talk it through first, book a free discovery call here, it's a good place to start.

Most food and drink brands get this the wrong way round

So basically, most food and drink brands choose their flavour direction based on what they want the product to represent. Premium. Sophisticated. Bold. Natural. On trend. And I think it's important to say: these things do matter. You don't want a product that shouts "clean label" and delivers a flavour profile that feels completely artificial. Brand positioning absolutely has to be part of the conversation.

But it cannot be the whole conversation.

Before you ask "what flavour fits our brand?", you need to ask: what does my consumer actually need from this product at a flavour level? What problem are the flavours trying to solve? What experience are they looking for? Does the direction we've chosen actually head in that direction?

Those are very different questions. And the difference between them is why 76% of new product launches in the UK fail in their first year.

The marine collagen brief that concerned me from the start

I worked with a client on their marine collagen drink. They came with a clear brief: sophisticated, botanical, elegant, premium. I read it and thought, this is thorough, this clearly fits their brand image. But I was also immediately concerned.

Because their product had a significant fishy, musty base note. And no amount of "sophisticated" or "botanical" was going to fix that without first tackling what consumers were actually experiencing.

Their consumers had already been trying everything. Mixing the product into coffee, into tea, into juices, searching for something that would mask those off notes. And every single round of consumer testing said exactly the same thing: people just wanted to be able to drink it. They wanted something pleasant. That was it.

Until that problem was solved, all of the beautiful brand positioning had nowhere to land. Both things can be true at the same time, you can have a premium positioning and still write a brief that solves the consumer's real problem. But you have to start with the problem.

When the flavour solves one thing and quietly creates another

There's a more subtle version of this I want to share, because I'm actually still working on it right now. A vegan omega-3 product had already fixed the fishiness with a spearmint flavour. Sales were decent. Consumers weren't complaining about the off notes anymore.

But the spearmint was so intensely cooling, so menthol-heavy, that consumers couldn't eat or drink anything for hours afterwards. Most of them were taking it first thing in the morning, a few drops from a pipette on the tongue, and then they wanted to get on with their day. Except the menthol lingered for so long they couldn't have breakfast. Couldn't have a coffee.

So the brief had solved one problem without anyone ever asking: what does this product need to feel like for the person using it every single morning? Does it match what they feel, and what they need, in that specific moment?

If something similar is happening with one of your products right now, it's worth taking a proper look at the brief before you spend more time in development. A free discovery call is a good place to start that conversation.

Why asking consumers "what flavour do you want?" gives you the wrong answer

This is something I experienced first-hand at McVitie's. We would spend significant amounts of money on consumer testing to understand what new flavours people wanted in the next chocolate hobnob or digestive. And the answers were always, always the same. Variations of chocolate, caramel, or vanilla, every single time.

The product development team would then try to build those briefs, the samples would come back, and nothing would land. It was a colossal waste of time and money for everyone. And this was at McVitie's level.

The issue wasn't the consumers. When you ask someone what flavour they'd like from a list, they'll always go for their comfort zone, the flavours they already know and like. But that doesn't mean those flavours will work in your product, or that they truly reflect what your target consumers want from your specific category.

What you actually need is to understand their palate and their habits more broadly. Ask what food and drink they buy regularly, not just in your category but in general. Ask what crisps they go for, what chocolate they choose, what restaurants they go to, whether they always order the same thing on the menu or like trying something new. These details tell you whether they want something classic or something new, something subtle or something bold, and whether they're bored of what the category keeps offering them.

When going against the category is exactly the right move

I worked with a client on a pre-workout range. When we looked at the category, everything was the same: blue raspberry, cherry cola, bubble gum, colours that looked like they'd come from another planet. The flavour workshops were built almost entirely around confectionery profiles.

But when we worked with the athletes my client was building for, it turned out many of them had never bought a pre-workout before, specifically because of all of those very artificial, confectionery flavour profiles. They wanted something juicier, fresher, more natural. And when we created that, it was a clear gap in the market. Their consumers actually wanted it.

It's not because your category always does something a certain way that you have to do exactly the same. As long as it's backed up by what your target consumers genuinely want.

One honest question before your next brief

Before you brief a flavour house, before you sit down with your co-manufacturer, before you finalise any direction, ask yourself one question. Do you have actual evidence that your target consumers want this specific flavour?

Not that it fits your brand positioning. Not that it's on trend. Evidence that the people you're building this for will choose it again and again, because it matches something deeper. Do they want something classic or something new? Something subtle or something bold? Does the flavour actually match how they feel, and what they need, when they reach for your product?

If the answer is no, you know what to do. Talk to your consumers, not to ask them which flavour they'd prefer from a list, but to understand their habits, their palate, and what they're not finding in your category yet.

Flavours are always more complex than we think. The decisions around them don't have to be.

If you want to go deeper on your flavour brief before development begins, I'd love to have that conversation. Book a free discovery call here, let's make sure your next launch starts from the right place.