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If you're a food and drink brand and your product isn't performing the way it should, maybe the sales have slowed down or the review. Keep mentioning that the taste is not that great. I have created something to help you. It's called the Flavour Blueprint. It's a free guide that based on the process I use with my clients to fix their underperforming products.
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If you're tired of guessing and you want clarity before another batch, download your free flavour blueprint. If you want to create food or drink products that actually taste amazing, get the repeat purchases and see your sales go up.
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You need the flavour strategy. I'm Manon Galizzi, food scientist and flavour expert. And in this podcast I share what I've learned from helping food and drink brands create new products from scratch. Choose the right flavour direction or fix the flavours that are not working. Welcome to another episode of my 30 days podcast challenge.
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Today I'm going to talk about the main problem I see with non hfss and a vegan problem. And for me the problem is exactly the same. I mean I still remember when I was still working in the flavour house and vegan became very popular.
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So that was few years ago. So we organized the tasting with a lot of vegan product, sweet and savory, huge tasting. And at the end of the tasting we had all a conversation about it. It was all trying copy something that already existed.
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So trying to copy a steak, a ham, a chicken, a pudding, it was just trying to replicate exactly the same taste and the same texture which obviously they all failed. Trust me, it wasn't a nice and pleasant tasting.
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Most of the product didn't tasted nice at all. Texture was wrong, the flavours were wrong, it was just very unpleasant. So I'm sure since then there's been a lot of progress around the texture and the taste of this vegan plant based product.
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But there is still for me the problem of trying to replicate something that is impossible to achieve. And it's exactly the same with non hfss where all, all of these big brands in the food industry started to recreate their iconic product in a non hfss way.
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So I've tried Mass Bounty, Digestive biscuits. All of these products tasted disgusting. Nothing was right. And bear in mind these products are treating products.
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They are pick me up. They are a treat. Not something necessarily you're gonna eat, I hope all day long. It's a treat, goes well with the tea or when you don't have time for lunch, you have a little pick me up or when it's a long afternoon.
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It's also all of this emotional need that we have where we need a break, not, not mentioning KitKat. So you also have to remember that there is an emotional and mental need when we go for this type of food.
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And with all of the products I've tried on non HFSS or plant based, trying to replicate the exact ham or pate or chicken or whatever it was, it was always this unsatisfying taste treat and flavour from the original.
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And I think it just pushed such a lack of creativity. I was very shocked during that plant based tasting because I really thought the UK have embraced plant based now. We're gonna have much more pulses and goodness and nutritious product in our diet with creative flavour.
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So I really thought there would be an opportunity for food and drink businesses to create something new, something again nutritious and healthy, helping us having our fibers. I thought they would take the opportunity that way.
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But instead I saw a lot of lack of creativity. All of these products were full of additives and they were far, far from being nutritionist or healthy. So we all thought, oh, this is plant based, so it must be healthy.
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Oh, it's not hfss, it must be healthy. But the reality was it was so much, so much additives, it was just completely empty product full of things to make literally mask anything that is usually unpleasant or trying to mimic a texture with fat and sugar.
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So the plant based product, and there was a huge scandal around a few years ago, they were so, so, so unhealthy, so full of fat and sugar, anything to make it palatable basically.
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But the reality is non hfss, it's hard to pronounce, isn't it? Non HFSS or plant based product really deliver on this and this is just an impossible task. How can you try to recreate a digestive biscuits, which is very complex, has a lot of ingredients and a very specific product.
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If you change the fat, so it's not palm anymore, it's sunflower seed oil or any other seed oil, you reduce the amount of sugar, you reduce the amount of fat. They're so complex, the Maillard reaction will never be exactly the same.
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You can throw as much flavouring as you want. Any additives that you want to be able to rebuild that is never going to taste like a proper digestive biscuit or a Bounty or a Mars bar or a Sneakers or a chocolate bar.
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Anything that comes to mind will never be exactly same. It's just scientifically impossible. And by that time, if you were the only non HFSS or plant based brand on the market, you had maybe the exclusivity, you were the only one on shelf.
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Yes, your product may have worked for a while, but then nowadays there are so many competitors. You can't just rely on being the only one on the market. It's a war against which one tastes the best.
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So your product have to taste good. Whatever is non HFSS or is plant based, it has to taste good. And that's why studies showed that non HFSS few years ago was a huge fail. Huge fail.
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All of these big food and drink industries lost millions because of non hfss. Because people have it once and then they will have it again because they taste disgusting or they don't taste as nice as their standard product. So between a normal Mars bar and a non jefesis1, what do you think the consumer are gonna pick realistically?
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And it was the same for plant based. So many research have shown that people, they are back to eating more and more meat and they completely give up on these plant based substitutes. I think the solution is, and I saw so many brands doing this is actually to create something new.
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Take this opportunity or this challenge when it's non HFSS for example, and create something new. Create new product in your range that are nutritious, healthier, that maybe less ingredient, maybe a little bit more clean label.
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So in that case you will pick up the interest of consumers like oh, that's new, that sounds, that look interesting. That sounds interesting. The flavour sounds interesting. I'm gonna try and again, it has to taste nice. We know that new things are not enough, but you will create something that people will buy again and again rather than and then completely deceptive.
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By buying a product it tastes disgusting or it doesn't taste as n the original one, I will never buy it again. So if you are a food and drink business struggling with non HFSS or if you are a plant based business, do something different.
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Use your creativity. Use this opportunity to create something that is new, that is nutritious. Less ingredients, good for people, good for the planet. This is how you're going to make a difference. As always, I hope this episode was helpful.
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You can find all of my tips around tasting flavours and product development in my newsletter. So don't forget to subscribe and I will see you tomorrow for another episode. Bye.
