A taste for natural flavours

In January 2011 new regulations from the European Union were introduced that ruled the term ‘natural’ on a product label could only be used for “substances or preparations derived directly from an animal or vegetable material”, meaning the original legislation allowing flavourings to be ‘identical’ to natural flavours had been removed.

This change in legislation officially reflected a growing consumer trend towards the purchasing of more natural products that has been increasing over the last few years.

In 2008 a business insights study stated that 81.4% of respondents believed “flavours from natural ingredients” would be the most important trend from 2008 to 2012 and this, along with the desire for reduced salt and sugar, has led to a flavouring approach driven by consumers’ desire for health and wellness.

A demand for natural and authentic products

“The major trend we’re all aware of is health and wellness,” says Marie Wright, VP and flavourist at International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF).

“Food manufacturers are dedicated to improving the quality of their products, which impacts the kind of work that we are doing – whether in terms of related flavour types, such as blueberry, or reducing sugar and salt – as it affects what components we decide to use.”

In 2010, IFF introduced a new range of EU-compliant natural flavours for beef and chicken.

The chicken flavours encompass high-impact, clean flavour profiles for boiled white meat, boiled dark meat, roast chicken, grilled chicken and fatty skin, and the new IFF beef flavours include marrow bone, boiled, roast, grilled and stewed profiles.

“IFF’s ability to identify local taste preferences enabled us to develop specific beef and chicken flavour profiles that match the needs of European palates,” says Touran Cheraghi-Kroon, Director of Creative & Applications, Innovation Europe/Africa/Middle East.

Wholegrain also makes up part of this leaning towards more natural and healthier choices from consumers.

“Wholegrain is everywhere at the moment,” says Wright, “and inherently it has a very unpleasant taste so we have to work around that.

“We have a programme dedicated to taste modulation that provides us with natural preparations in our flavours to make the products taste delicious.”

Familiarity is also in demand. “Consumers want authentic products that offer tastes they know and are buying products they perceive as natural,” says Dr Eberhard Suessle, Technical Director of Savory Flavor & Nutrition EAME Business Unit at Symrise. “With respect to lifestyle and nutrition this means that today’s consumers are longing for a balance between holistic health and pure pleasure, which are by no means mutually exclusive.”

From component to consumer

When it comes to creating flavours for a product there are many different approaches, but the most common involves going to the natural source of the target flavour required – for example the apple, to discover a new apple flavour.

When IFF recently had to create a new apple flavour for a customer, Dennis Kujawski, a senior flavourist at IFF, explains they started the process at an Empire apple orchard and brought back 15lbs of apples on which to carry out various tasting and smelling procedures, which then led to some collaboration with the R&D department.

“They did an extensive analysis which showed up around 250 components. At this stage we try to find a component that hasn’t been identified before – and if we do then the team of synthetic chemists evaluate it and determine its importance to the apple profile.

“We then make a flavour as close as possible to our desired target, also bearing in mind the costs and manufacturability, and then take it through a number of trials,” adds Kujawski.

At Symrise once a flavour is determined, the flavourists and evaluators taste it and give their opinion. A market sample, where available, is also used for a cross-check and if any group feels the flavour needs another aspect, the flavourist reworks the ‘recipe’. It is only when the Symrise team and the customer is happy that the product goes into production.

The trials of taste

For products to be successful it is not just taste alone that is taken into account.

With smell making up a major part of taste and authentic taste being linked to the repeated purchase of a particular flavour, these elements also have to be taken into consideration during the development of a customer’s flavour and final product.

“A vanilla ice cream very often awakens childhood memories, for example, it causes pleasant feelings, and taste experiences from other countries remind us of our holidays, which are usually a time of joy and relaxation,” says Suessle. “If the flavours we taste in our everyday diet resemble those experiences as closely as possible then it is likely that they are added to the shopping cart again.”

IFF runs a full programme dedicated to understanding the emotional impact of taste. “We have global dispensary teams who are dedicated to understanding the drivers of liking for consumers and that links into our R&D programme to understand the impact of flavours, which we utilise to create them,” says Wright. “I always think the process of creating a flavour requires the skill and expertise of a chemist combined with the creativity of a chef.”

Time for technology

When it comes to new technology, a significant development noted by IFF flavourists is in the way that flavours are delivered. “Some flavours are going to be primarily water soluble, some oil soluble, and, depending on the application, we may need a dried flavour,” says Kujawski.

“We would need that dry sample, for example, to retain its desired flavour characteristic as much as possible after going through the process to put it into that form.”

To meet the demands of the growing consumer trend for natural products, Symrise has developed a SymTrap plant. “The SymTrap process not only applies to volatile flavouring substances, it can also be used to increase the concentration of bioactive ingredients in natural extracts and uses a refined adsorption / desorption technique that effectively concentrates various substances,” says Dr Stephan Hillers, Category Director Food Supplement Ingredients at Symrise.

As it only uses small quantities of solvents to extract the ingredients the technique is also natural from a legislative point of view. While anthocyanins are important to human health, they are found only in trace amounts in bilberries (no more than 0.5%), but using this method the anthocyanins from bilberries can be concentrated to a content of 25%. “The technology allows us to gently extract functional ingredients from nature by maintaining a consistent high standard of quality,” says Hillers.