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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 flavor 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 flavor 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 flavor strategy. I'm Manon Galizzi, food scientist and flavor 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 flavor direction or fix the flavors that are not working. Welcome to another episode of my 30 day podcast challenge.
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Today we are tackling another myth, which is, oh, I have a bad palate. I can't really taste anything. This is a lie. And yes, you can learn how to test better.
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And if you are a food and drink brand and you want to motivate some of your employees that not necessarily part of the tasting on a daily basis, they may not be part of your R D team, but you want to motivate them.
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This is where the episode is gonna help you and your team. You can absolutely learn how to test better. Let's see how to do it. Let's start by understanding how your brain perceives flavors.
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Our brain is absolutely not designed to describe precisely what we taste. Instead, you he focuses on survival. Is it safe to eat? Am I gonna die if I eat this?
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Compared to imagining our brain thinking, oh, yes, it tastes a little bit woody and citrusy. And he has some floral notes. No, no, no. This is the first thing that the brain constantly, not just when you drink and eat, is thought.
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Thinking, I need you to survive. Is it safe to consume? That's why we need to train our brain to describe flavors. It will never come naturally. You will always hear about these super testers.
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It just means that they are more sensitive to certain things. Most of the time is bitterness. So that's why when you see a super test, they put some, bitterness on a little piece of paper, then you put on your tongue. And people who think, oh, it's super bitter, it's disgusting.
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They are called the supertesters. But this test is not accurate at all. It's just basically based on how much bitterness that you can taste. So it's not because someone is going to be bitter blind that they can't be a super tester.
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So forget about this test. Okay? So we need to have proper trainings to train our brain how to recognize the different flavor characteristics and express it in a way that everyone understands.
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Because if I say for example, oh, it reminds me of when my grandma was cooking A, B and C. No one in the room is gonna understand what the hell I'm talking about. Okay, so that's why we have mainly these trainings is to learn a new language, the flavour, language of course learning how to recognize and articulate in front of everyone so everyone understand each other.
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So we create basically a, neutral language and we remove as much bias and personal opinions as personal possible. So for that we use references. The first thing to do is to clearly understand.
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We all have a completely unique palette that is shaped by genetic culture, upbringing, and exposure. No one on this planet will taste the same thing as you. And this is okay, so in the tasting and always encourage the food and drink brands, owners or founder or the manager, whoever is in the room and is hosting the tasting are always encouraged to have a very respectful culture when it's around tasting.
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So no one talk over each other, no one disrespect the palate of someone else. It doesn't taste like that. Why are you talking about it tastes like this and this and this or encouraging people to actually talk and be like, yes, we all have a different palette.
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And me when I host a tasting I need to have all of these comments. I will focus on the ones that resonate with the majority of people. But some people may be sensitive to certain things and it would be quite interesting in the future when we see the consumer feedback if that resonates with something else.
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So it's always very interesting to have all of these different palette in the room because you have a glimpse of what your product may taste like for a lot of your consumers. So I don't discount this kind of flavor characteristic.
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The only thing I always discount when it's about the tasting is personal preferences such as, oh, I really like it. Oh I really hate it. This is disgusting. I had these comments in tasting and over time I just like, what do you want me to do with this?
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What the hell do you want me to do about that? There's nothing I can do. You're not the target consumers. You're only one person not liking. If you're telling me this is a bit too confectionary for me, the confectionery notes are too high, maybe the sweetness is a little bit too high.
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That I can work with if you just say I don't like it. Just like what, do you want me to tweak? Do you want me to change the whole thing? That doesn't bring anything to the table. This is useless information and that just put everything into the bin.
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So it's very important to understand our own unique palette and understanding our sensitivity. So when we do a tasting we also rationalize, we bring down a nudge a little. We try to bring only constructive feedback and characteristics.
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We have to describe the product only around flavor characteristic, basic taste, mouth feel only characteristics. We have to remove the personal preferences and all of these comments about this. Disgusting.
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This is amazing. This is great. This is not great. I like it. I don't like it. Okay. It's only at the end when we've done the tasting and we have few samples. This is when I ask which one was your favorite and why? Why do you want me to do now? Which one do you want to go forward with?
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What changes would you like me to do on this product so we can move forward? What is lacking? What is good about this product? What next? So now you're asking me, but how can I train my brain? He exists on the market, some flavor lexicon you will see mainly for wine, whiskey, cheeses, beers, mainly this kind.
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I'm probably forgetting some, but mainly for this kind of product. And this is something because I've been trained on flavor lexicon. This is what I train my clients and their team when they buy one of my packages, whether is create, choose or fix.
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So is always included. I always create a bespoke lexicon and spend some time doing the training with them. So it help us when we do the product development. And the way this flavor lexicon look like is smelling references.
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And it can be something that look like a chemical or it can actually be something that you can find in your kitchen or in your garden. Like for example, I've done a flavor lexicon training and how to taste to one of my clients a few weeks ago.
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And I actually just picked cut grass for my neighbors. Actually don't tell them, I had some soil coming again from my neighbours, I had some actual caramel. So it can be as simple as just smelling something that's you use all the time.
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So what we do is for a flavour lexicon to work we need to remember the smelling references in a very quick way. So for that we ask the limping system to remember.
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We use emotions and memories and feeling to remember flavours much quicker. But this is what happens to anyone when you smell something. Suddenly you are completely brought back to a memory. A perfume maybe reminds you of someone or when you were cooking with your mum or your dad or your granddad's garage, it just brings you back to a memory.
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So flavors, memories and feelings are very, very intertwined. So we are using it when we do a flavour lexicon training. So we smell the reference and we focus on what does it remind us of?
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Any feeling, any places you've been before. So I had sometimes very interesting comments.
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What did we have? Muddy boots. It smells like the warehouse. And all of these very personal, this is what is good about is personal. All of these references, these memories or just association.
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So we do that for the lexicon itself and then we talk to each other about, okay, what was your association with these smelling references? So it can also help each other out when sometimes we are a little bit in the picot.
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I'm not sure it reminds me of something, but I can't put my finger what it is. We all have been in a situation, so having this conversation together actually help the training. And the most difficult thing is actually to remember, remember to using these terms, to use the smelling reference.
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So if, for example, that person, when they taste something, they suddenly think, oh, it smells like the warehouse. Suddenly they have to remember, oh, yes, it was that smelling reference. So rather than saying the tasting, it smells like the warehouse, they will say it smells cowboy and everyone knows what it's talking about.
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We may have different associations, but because we have the same, reference, we all know what we're talking about. We have this common language. And one other thing, I always invite everyone I train around flavor.
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Lexicon is actually to practice mindfulness. Whatever you eat, whatever you drink on a daily basis. So being mindful most of the time we are chatting to someone or we are working, when we are drinking a tea or eating or lunch or something.
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And it's actually being mindful, taking the time closing your eyes. So obviously either you do it with someone or it's easier sometimes to do it alone. Any ingredients? Open your fridge. When you're going to pour your milk into your tea in the morning, smell your milk, what does it?
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Ask yourself, what does it smell like? Whatever it is, it can be just a basic taste. It can be like, oh, it smells a bit sour, oh, it smells a bit sweet. It just smells like milk. For Fine, just go beyond that when you taste your tea.
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What does this taste like? Try to have as much characteristic as possible when next time you use some butter in your cooking. What does this butter smell like? What does this olive oil smell like? Or any food or cuisine that you're eating.
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What does it taste like? What does it smell like? Can you pick anything that is maybe a little bit floral? Is it a little bit caramelic? Is it a little bit like cut grass? Try to find things even beyond just normal food.
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You can use characteristics and references like soil, cardboard, plastic. I had a, battery before, mud. It can be anything like that.
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Play DOH is the one that I use very frequently, especially when it's around plant based. That's a note for me that is very often there. I never ate Play doh, but I know that smell when you open the pot as a child.
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So be mindful as much as possible and practice, practice, practice. And when you're in tasting, your brain will come out much quicker with your references or just what he actually has tasted before. It's just going to the gym.
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You just make your brain think a little bit quicker every single time about what it tastes like and remembering things from before again. Oh, it tasted like this olive oil I've tasted yesterday. Oh yeah, it tasted a little bit like butter. So it's just practicing and make your brain past that survival mode of am I gonna die or not?
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Are you safe or not? And just go through a little bit and don't be shy and don't be scared. People will say, oh, I'm just scared of saying something silly. It's like, no, this is what you taste. This is it. If you are struggling a little bit to articulate, then we can find it together and you can always find someone else that can help you find the right words.
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Maybe you need again to point a finger on. Is it something sweet? Is it something savory? Is it something confectionary? Is it something in my cupboard? And it's just practice. Okay, this is the end of the episode. I would love to hear from you. So if it's a topic that you are interested in, let me know in the comments and I will do more podcast around this.
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As, always I hope this episode was helpful. In a few days I will be wrapping up my 30 day podcast challenge. And to thank you for your support and for listening to all of the episodes, I'm doing a special Q and A episode where I will answer all of your questions.
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So drop your question in the comments or message me, direct me on Instagram or LinkedIn. I would love to hear from you and I will see you tomorrow for another episode. Bye.
