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Welcome to the third episode of the 30 Day Podcast Challenge. And today we are talking about when communicating with flavour houses. So when I say flavour house is manufacturer that create flavours extract essences, oleoresin, etc.
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Etc. So some example would be Givaudan, IFF, Synergy flavours, Symrise, they are the biggest. So when I was working in one of these flavour houses, the worst that could happen to me every time, and it did happen a lot, trust me was when one of my customers was asking to be sent few strawberry flavours. That's it. That was the brief send three strawberries flavours.
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I knew there, I knew their product but I had no indication on the flavour profile they wanted. And I saw that again and again and again and again.
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I saw that when I was working at Mcvities. Sorry to say but working at Mcvities and you see this kind of behaviors from product developers asking for different strawberry flavours to their flavour houses.
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And I asked which strawberry did you ask for? And the answer was always the same. "Oh, I just asked for few different samples, few different flavor profile. They are the expert, they will know". And I look at them and said every single time they are not the expert, we are, we are the expert of the product that we are the developing this is up to us to select and guide them into sending us flavour profile we have designed.
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Not just letting them decide which flavour profile to go for. They have no idea. Most of the time they don't even have the ingredients. They won't have the same process. Even if you send to the flavour houses your process and your ingredient, it would never be the same as the manufacturing one.
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Coming out directly from the Mcvities factory. Never exactly being the same. And I saw hundreds of back and forth, "oh no, I don't really like this strawberry. Can we have another one?" "Oh no, I still don't like this strawberry". Can we have another 100 of back and forth.
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And I just wanted literally to bang my head or on the wall like this is ludicrous. And I saw that even talking with some friends in other food industry and they all say the same yeah, this is, this is what we do.
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And I always thought this is just so wrong. So when I was at Mcvities, I put in place some flavour lexicon training with the sensory team and one of the flavour house, one of our partner, we put in place some, some training to be able to them to understand how to articulate the flavour profile accordingly.
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Because this is not something that you are taught when you are a food scientist or when you become a product developer. No one teach you how to properly do a tasting, how to properly taste and describe flavour. And this is so, so, so important. And no one taught us that it's only when you can you go into the flavour house like myself when you have most of the time not always this kind of flavour lexicon training and is very important but it was also to make them understand that we have to select the, the flavour profile.
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And this why I'm giving you this tool today for you to be exactly the same. If you're a food and drink brand and either you are looking for which next flavour to have for your product or if you see that there are some of your products on the market that are not performing that you have bad reviews or they stop selling.
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And the main problem is the flavours and the taste. This is something that you have to consider and look internally how you select your flavours. If you're a fruit and drink brand that just go to any flavour houses and ask for, I quote different strawberry flavors then you are in the wrong.
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And this is probably why your product is not performing the way it should. This is a such a common mistake that I see again and again and again. It has to and it is very easily fixable.
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You just have to internally do some tasting. So when I do project with clients, I sit down with them and we have a sort of flavour workshop where I will buy the relevant market product, I will buy some of their competitors, we will try their product and together we will understand where their products sit compared to other product market but also what an actual strawberry tastes like.
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This is a flavour perception is very subjective and it will change from individual to individual.
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Some people will associate a strawberry flavour with something that is very ripe. And don't forget it exists on this planet probably thousands of different species of strawberry. So for example the one I have in mind because I'm French would be the most common one would be a garriguette type of strawberry.
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they are very sweet, very floral, they're a little bit sulfurous because most of time they are very, very ripe.
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But this is not the association that everyone have when they think about strawberry. It may be Something that is a little bit more confectionary because they used to love strawberry, laces as a child
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Or they have this association of strawberry being very milky, because they are used to have a lot of strawberry yogurt or strawberry flavoured milk for example. And when we sit down all together and we try these different products, so it's not just market product like your competitors, is actual product.
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I always buy actual strawberries, strawberries jam, confectionery strawberries, all of these different flavour profile, from very natural to very confectionery and artificial. And then trying your product, you start to understand the best direction for your product.
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I'm always here to guide. Especially if it's a plant based protein. Flavours like vanilla and strawberry or blueberry will be a struggle. So it's very important internally to have this reflection, to have this thought process of this is what is actually on the market, competitors and actual product.
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So if you have banana, I want you to include real banana. And if you can, if you can really dig down, have different sort of bananas, very ripe, medium ripe, unripe. See the difference, see the difference when you have different species of strawberries or any fruit or any veg for example.
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And start to understand that even in nature a strawberry will never be a strawberry according to where it's grown, according to the weather for that season, according to the species, everything like that. They will have a different flavour.
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It's exactly the same as wine, same species of same grape variety according to the terra, where it's grown, what have been done to it, the treatment that it has had, etc. The process.
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The wine will have a different taste, we know that. So flavours is exactly the same. So once you start to understand this, you can draw, what I always do is a flavour brief, be as much detailed as possible.
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What sort of flavour profile do you want? Do you want a strawberry that is creamy? Do you want a strawberry that is jammy and a little bit floral? And then add on your benchmark product. You have to realize that in the flavour house they obviously the flavourist that can create bespoke, flavours.
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But most of the time people like me, when I was a senior application technologist, my purpose, my goal was to go to the flavour library where I will smell dozens of different strawberry flavours and start thinking what may go well with the product.
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But it's never as simple as having a jammy strawberry, a floral strawberry, a creamy strawberry. Each of these flavours, have dozens of flavour profile and different notes and Characteristics.
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So even a jammy strawberry may still have some creaminess, they may have some confectionary notes, they may have some green notes. So green, again, I'm going to mention these references a lot. Green is like cut grass or very, unripe tomato. Okay?
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So each flavour will have a dozen of characteristics and notes. It will never just be a jammy strawberry or a creamy strawberry. So you have, you see, like it looks like a funnel. Once you know you have your strawberry flavour, then you deep dive into, okay, would I like a jammy, a confectionery or a creamy?
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Okay, let's say these are your three flavour profile you have selected and you think they are good for your product. So you have Jammy Creamy Confectionery. Okay.
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And you're not sure yet which one will fit best your product because obviously you have to try. Okay, fine. Then for each of them you have your benchmark product. Okay, fine. Then when you receive the different flavour profile, from the flavour house, you can then again narrow down thinking, okay, this one has some floral notes, then the other one doesn't.
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Is it good, is it bad? does it fit my brand, what I want to achieve and my target consumers? You always have to come back to this. It's never just about how your product tastes like it's also, does it fit my target consumers based on their demographic, what they like, why they like your brand, etc. Etc.
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So by doing all of this exercise and give your flavour house as much detail as possible, you will maximize working with them. You would diminish the numbers of back and forth, the numbers of trials.
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It is such a much more focused approach because in some flavour Houses, they also have a system where internally they evaluate the flavours.
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if I give keywords to a flavour house, like I want it jammy with some floral note, with a little bit creamy, something like that, they may not have a perfect match, but at least they can go to their system and think, "yeah, we have this type of flavour, strawberry, let me just request it for you".
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It will be so much easier for any product developer or someone that it will be so much easier for any application technologist or people who are responsible for selecting the flavours for you to know which direction to go for.
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Because again, they may have hundred of jammy strawberries, they may have hundreds of creamy strawberries, and flavour houses don't have the resources or time to spend days on trying all of this flavours for you.
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So the more accurate you are, the quicker it will be for them to select the right flavour profile and you will avoid so much back and forth which are completely useless. They are waste of time and money for everyone.
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Okay, this is the end of our episode. I hope this little tip was helpful. Let me know in the comment.
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Don't hesitate to send me questions or comments if you want to learn more about this kind of method that I used to.
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Okay, this is the end of episode. I hope this tip was helpful. Let me know in the comment or go directly to the EPICI Instagram and DM me if you want to learn more or if you have questions around the method that I use and how to avoid this kind of mistakes for your food and drink brands.
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And I will see you tomorrow for another episode. Bye.
