Ice Cream dairy flavorings

Got Flavor?

Flavor chemist interviewed on the alchemy of modifying taste in dairy products.

Senior Flavor Chemist

When it comes to dairy products, ice cream in particular, there’s usually one shot at a consumer’s taste buds. If they don’t like it, they tend not to finish what they've purchased, and they often will never go near that brand again.

That’s why dairy flavorings, particularly in multi-ingredient platforms like ice cream, can be so challenging. The taste (and in some cases, aroma) must be dynamic and pleasing to the consumer, and it also has to blend often-opposing contexts (sweet vs. salty, for instance). Sometimes an agent is introduced to mask, or conceal, some aspects of a flavor or flavors while enhancing others to produce the blend and mouthfeel the consumer expects.

This challenge repeats itself in other consumer products, such as the increasingly large range of sports-oriented consumer beverages containing protein. These ready-to-drink, or RTD, beverages are an efficient way to ingest protein, but many of them aren’t achieving that elusive combination of good taste with maximum nutritional benefit. 

In a recent Food Business News article, Glanbia Nutritionals Senior Flavor Chemist Manager Jody Emmel discussed how he and the Glanbia team tackle the taste and aroma challenge in innovative ways.

“In a chocolate-flavored whey protein isolate-containing beverage, try adding a bit of vanilla flavor to boost the overall aroma and impact of the chocolate flavor,” Emmel says. “For a vanilla-flavored beverage, a bit of salt may help the flavor intensity.”
 

In addition to its forward-thinking work with such legacy flavors as chocolate, vanilla and strawberry, Glanbia Nutritionals is revolutionizing flavor masking or enhancement alongside protein inclusion and optimization with new technology such as BevEdge Whey Protein A-220. This pre-acidified whey protein ingredient is designed to make citrus and berry flavors possible, thus providing the springboard for new opportunities in sports and lifestyle protein powder brands.

To learn more about how Glanbia’s team of experts can modify and enhance your flavor portfolio to create the perfect taste and mouthfeel, reach out to us today.

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