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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 a 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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A very quick episode today to make you realize how much ingredients influence the flavour profile and the intensity of the flavours in your food and drink product. Let's start by understanding the difference of having a product that is dry compared to a product that is moist.
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And it can be as simple as comparing a, biscuit to a muffin or cake. You can even do the test yourself. You take, for example, the same flavouring and you put it at the same amount in a simple biscuit recipe and a simple muffin recipe and you will see the difference.
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In term of perception, anything that is drier, the flavours will really struggle to come through. Compared to something that is much moist and aerated, you have to imagine they are trapped.
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When they are in something that is much drier, they're almost like trapped in a cage. So it's very hard for the flavours and the aroma to get out of that cage and reach, olfactory receptors in the nose.
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Compared to something that is much more moisty and aerated and the cage is very loose, they just open the door and off they go. So that's the first thing to realize is how much the moistness of a product will change the flavour release and the flavour perception.
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I'm working on the vegan and gluten free cookie for one of my customers. I try to improve the cookies and one of the things that is shocking every time I try to improve the softness of the cookies and avoid the cookies coming dry, especially over shelf life.
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So every time I try to lock in that moisture and create softness in the cookies, the flavours come through so much more and they last longer as well. So once you swallow, the aftertaste of that flavours stays longer in your mouth.
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The second thing to understand and when is a product is very high in fat. So chocolate is the best example, the best way to actually eat the chocolate is to put it on your tongue and let it melt rather than just munching, munching, Munching.
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Munching. And this is because we have to let the fat melt slowly to get all of the flavours coming through. So every product that is very high in fat, especially when it's saturated fat, cocoa, butter and chocolate, for example, the release of the flavour would take a little time. Exactly the same.
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They are in this cage, very tight cage, and it's very, very, very hard for the flavours to come through that. So there will be a delay in terms of when the flavours actually come through in your mouth. So you can do that as well.
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If you take the same piece of chocolate, you munch it first, off it goes and you try to pick up the flavours. And if you actually do the same test, but this time let it melt on your tongue and see how much more flavours will come through when you let the fat melt and the flavour release.
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So then what happen when there is not enough fat, sweetness or saltiness? Again, I said sweetness. So it doesn't need to be proper sugar. It can be anything you use to increase the sweetness perception of your product. The same for the saltiness. Okay.
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When there is not enough, we know that they are flavour boosters. So when there is not enough of this, the flavour data delivery and the flavour profile will be very, very, very different. The whole perception will be different.
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The flavour will seem flat, less complex, the intensity of the flavour will be different, the flavour profile will be different. Especially when it's around the sweetness is just incredible. If you take the same recipe that you have and you decrease the sweetness, you will see how much, not only the functionality and the texture will change.
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How the flavour profile, which, you will have the feeling this is a completely different flavouring that you're using. So when it's too much fat, it's exactly the same, or fat or sweetness or saltiness, it's exactly the same. We just saw a minute ago when a, product is very high in fat, how much it delays the flavour.
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When it's exactly the same for sweetness and saltiness, they actually don't the flavour. So you will have exactly the same. So you have to be very careful with fat, sweetness and saltiness. The little, little tiny change you do can become very quickly too high or too low and it will impact the flavour delivery.
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Again the flavour profile. So when I mean flavour profile is a strawberry for example can be much more cooked and jammy and then becoming very green and grassy and unrip, when there is not enough sweetness.
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So the flavour profile would change. It's exactly the same flavouring but suddenly the perception is completely different. You have to imagine how much the brain works. It always comes back to something that you know. So for the brain having a strawberry that is not very sweet, immediately it will come back to a fresh strawberry that you pick from the supermarket that is not ripe enough or haven't seen the sun a lot.
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You know, this kind of strawberries I like very watery, not sweet, unripe. So you always have to understand how the brain perceive food. So strawberry which is not sweet enough, the brain will perceive it more as something that is fresh and unripe is it has a lot of sugar, it may transform the flavour profile into a jammier strawberry.
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So the brain always come back to something it knows and that changed completely the, the perception of the flavour that we have. So think about your balance and how much affect the flavour profile and the flavour intensity. And lastly, when you have a liquid product compared to a solid product, this is again a completely different experience in terms of flavours.
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When it's liquid it's actually very hard to pick up all of the flavours. It goes so quickly it doesn't stay long in your mouth. So you really have to be sure when you have a liquid then the flavours are impactful because you really don't have long compared to something that is solid and you have to chew.
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So when you have to chew, the flavours will be a little bit delayed. Like I said, they have to come out of their cage but they gonna stay in your mouth longer. You may appreciate more, you may have more complexity of the flavours and pick up much more flavour notes compared to a liquid that will have a very intense perception straight away but it will be gone like that.
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So you really have to make sure the experience of your product is pleasant enough. You have to be sure if you have a liquid or solid food product that all of the flavours are actually coming through and are they coming through long enough or is that just a matter of off you have it and off they go?
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So the experience of the consumer with your product is very, very important. So when you are in your product development stage and you're struggling with the flavours of your product, just step back and have a look at the bigger picture of your recipe and what ingredient actually causes that problem and what you can do about it.
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You have to think about your recipe as an equilibrium. A little bit less of something, a little bit more of this, and that will completely change the balance of your flavours, the flavour profile and its intensity. 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.
