Why Your Food or Drink Product Isn't Selling – It’s Not Just the Flavouring
Oct 06, 2025
Have you ever tried a product that tasted not quite right? Maybe it's too sweet, not salty enough, or the flavours are just flat?
That's because fat, sweetness, saltiness, and acidity do a lot more than just functionality – they actually shape how flavours are released and perceived. And getting that wrong is one of the top reasons why food and drink products fail.
If you're a food or drink business owner struggling with negative reviews, decreasing sales, or overwhelmed by product development challenges, this guide will help you understand the fundamental ingredients that make or break flavours.
The Real Reason Behind Those Negative Reviews
Picture this scenario: your sales are dropping, and customer reviews are increasingly negative. Comments like "it doesn't taste good," "too sweet," "too salty," or "not enough flavour" are becoming all too familiar.
Before you jump straight to changing your flavourings or adding more expensive ingredients, I want you to step back, take a deep breath, and focus on the base first.
The Four Pillars of Flavour Perception
The main tools that shape how your customers perceive flavours – their intensity, characteristics, and longevity – are:
- Fat
- Sweetness (not just sugar)
- Saltiness (not just salt)
- Acidity
These ingredients serve multiple functions in your products. They provide mouthfeel and texture, bringing creaminess, richness, indulgence, crunch, or softness.
They create visual appeal with glossy finishes or appealing colours. They extend shelf-life by decreasing water activity or pH levels. Most importantly, they enhance and carry flavours.
But here's the crucial point: if you don't get the balance right – either too much or not enough – it will have a huge impact on your flavours, and they may not shine at all.
Why Taste Matters More Than Ever
We have to bear in mind that how a product tastes is one of the main reasons consumers don't repurchase. Even if they can't explain exactly why they don't like it, if the taste isn't right, they'll never buy it again – even if it's a highly functional product.
Take the hydration drink market, for example. A few years ago, if you were the only brand offering electrolyte hydration, customers tolerated very salty tastes, mineral flavours, and unusual mouthfeel.
But today, with intense competition in the hydration space, basic functionality isn't enough. You need to distinguish yourself through superior flavours.
What Happens When You Get It Wrong
Too Little Fat, Sweetness, Saltiness, or Acidity
When you don't have enough of these key components, flavours become muted and flat.
I experienced this first hand when working on reduced-sugar products at a flavour house. Even when using the most jammy strawberry flavours available for muffins and yogurts, the final product always tasted "green" – like unripe strawberry or fresh-cut grass.
This wasn't a flavouring problem; it was because the base wasn't sweet enough for the flavours to shine through properly.
I encountered the same challenge at McVitie's when developing non-HFSS (non-high in fat, sugar, and salt) digestive biscuits. The more sugar we reduced, the more the product developed green notes and hay-like flavours.
All the brown, cooked notes that make digestives biscuit iconic were missing, and no amount of flavour enhancers could compensate for the unbalanced base.
Too Much Fat, Sweetness, Saltiness, or Acidity
On the flip side, excess amounts create different problems:
- Too much fat (especially saturated fats like cocoa butter or coconut oil) coats the mouth and delays flavour release
- High sweetness or saltiness dulls flavours, overpowers them, and decreases complexity
- Excessive acidity can make products unpalatable
I worked with a client developing electrolyte drinks where the mineral content was so high that none of us could drink a full 500ml serving. The founder had to compromise between nutritional value and taste – because if no one can finish your product, there's no point in having it.
How to Find the Right Balance
Step 1: Fix the Base First
Start by addressing the fundamental balance before looking at flavourings. Gather feedback from your customers – it doesn't need to be overly technical. Simply ask: "What do you think of the sweetness?" "What about the saltiness?" or "What do you think the main problem is?"
I know this isn't always straightforward because these ingredients have functional purposes. You might not be able to reduce sweetness or fat as much as you'd like without affecting texture or shelf life, or you may be constrained by nutritional requirements.
Step 2: Select Flavours That Fit Your Base
Once you've optimised your base, focus on flavours that complement it – not the other way around. If we return to our strawberry example, decide whether a confectionery strawberry, cooked strawberry, or fresh strawberry best fits your new base.
This might sound counterintuitive, but trust the process. Start with the base, lock it in, find flavours that work with it, and then make minor tweaks if needed.
Step 3: Fine-Tune and Test
The flavourings you add will bring their own characteristics. For instance, vanilla flavourings are widely used because they provide creaminess and sweetness perception – not actual sugar, but the brain's interpretation of sweetness.
Once you've created what you believe is the perfect balance, test it with your consumers. Send free samples and gather their feedback to confirm you've made the right changes.
The Science Behind Taste Perception
Remember, all your senses are at play when someone tastes your product. The brain combines every piece of information – visual, aromatic, textural – to create a complete flavour experience.
This is why a blue drink immediately makes us think of artificial, very sweet flavours, or why mismatched colours and flavours confuse our palate.
This is also why each person has a different palate and experiences flavours differently. Understanding this helps you create products that appeal to your target market's specific preferences.
The Path to Product Success
In today's competitive food and drink market, functionality alone isn't enough. Customers have countless options, and taste will be the deciding factor in their repeat purchases. By understanding and mastering the balance of fat, sweetness, saltiness, and acidity, you can create products that not only function well but taste exceptional.
The key is to start with your base, perfect that foundation, and then build your flavour profile around it. This systematic approach will help you avoid the common pitfalls that lead to negative reviews and declining sales.
Remember: great taste isn't just about the flavourings you add – it's about creating the perfect canvas for those flavours to shine.
Struggling with product development challenges or negative customer reviews? As a food and drink product development consultant specialising in flavour profiles, I help established businesses create exceptional products from scratch or improve existing ones.
