What is flavour profile and why is it important for your product?
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Posted: Wed 30th Oct 2024
Developing and launching a successful product in today's FMCG competitive market requires a deep understanding of consumer preferences and tastes.
This is especially crucial in the food and beverage industry, where capturing and retaining consumer attention heavily relies on delivering exceptional flavours, as it remains the number one reason why people purchase/repurchase products. To meet these demands, it is vital for start-ups and SMEs to focus on developing a well-defined flavour profile for their products.
This article guides you through the critical role of flavour profiles and provides actionable strategies to align your product development with consumer expectations.
What is a flavour profile?
Let's start by explaining what flavour is and how we perceive it.
Flavour is a multi-sensory experience that combines taste, smell, memory, emotions and personal experiences.
Taste, for instance, relies on about 50 distinct taste receptor cells located in the mouth, mainly on the tongue. These receptors help us identify tastes like sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami. But taste is just one piece of the puzzle.
Another key element is chemesthesis. This includes sensations like spicy heat, cooling and tingling that we feel in our mouths. Previously known as the trigeminal response, chemesthesis helps us avoid danger by delivering a pain response to high temperatures or injuries. It also affects how things feel in our mouths. For example, tannins in wine can create a dry, tightening effect.
Then there's olfaction, or our sense of smell, which plays a huge role in how we perceive flavour. There are two types of olfaction, before (orthonasal) and after (retronasal) food and drink enter our mouths.
In both cases, the aroma compounds from food or drink are detected by the olfactory receptors in our noses. These receptors then transmit this information to the brain through the olfactory nerve.
The brain interprets this information by comparing it with familiar experiences to ensure our safety. This is why we often say that we taste mainly with our brains and why it can be challenging to embrace new ingredients or cuisines.
Additionally, our sense of smell has a strong impact on memory and emotions due to the close connection between the olfactory lobe and the limbic system, which controls our mood, memory, behaviour and emotions. That's why certain foods or drinks can evoke childhood memories or transport us back to a specific moment in time.
Flavour profile
A flavour profile is the expression of all the characteristics that make a flavour unique and it is mainly driven by aroma compounds. For example, a strawberry's flavour profile might include green, grassy, overripe and slightly jammy notes with a hint of sourness and medium to strong sweetness.
Our brains rely on survival instincts to quickly decide if something is safe or not. For instance, consider the smell of roasted coffee beans near a coffee shop versus the smell of something burning. Therefore, the brain will focus on the main sensory characteristics of food and drink to make quick decisions. You may recognise a smell as simply 'coffee' rather than identifying it as 'light roast coffee beans from Ethiopia with floral and fruity characteristics'.
However, foods and drinks are very complex and can contain hundreds of intricate aroma compounds. For example, coffee is composed of almost one thousand aroma compounds. This complexity makes it difficult for an untrained brain to detect and articulate all the specific flavour notes.
Developing the ability to detect and describe specific flavour characteristics requires patience, mindfulness and training. It also involves staying objective and not being influenced by our survival mechanisms, memories and emotions.
Traditionally used in cheese and wine, flavour profiles are also used within flavour houses. This type of training helps our brain accurately describe products, removing cultural and personal experience barriers and ensuring that everyone speaks the same language.
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Why is it so important?
Many factors influence consumer purchase decisions, such as price, convenience, naturality, health benefits, sustainability, brand reputation and brand loyalty. However, outside of periods of economic recession, consumer research proved that flavour and taste remain the number one reason people purchase and repurchase a product.
Flavour isn't just about enjoying a food or drink product, it's about creating an experience. This is why consumers focus on buying products that they find satisfying.
No matter how affordable, well-advertised or easily accessible a product may be, if it fails to deliver on flavour, customers will not repurchase it or recommend it to others. Flavour is also tied to the perceived value of a product. If the flavours are disappointing, consumers will perceive it as poor value for money and won’t buy it again unless it has significant functional or health benefits.
For example, sports nutrition products like protein isolates and BCAAs were known for their poor taste and bitterness until flavour modulators and markers improved their palatability. Consumers tolerated these products because of the product’s functionality, like improving muscle mass and performance or reducing muscle damage from exercise.
There are a few common issues that consumers may experience:
The flavour profile does not align with the product name. For example, BBQ ribs-flavoured crisps that taste more like a general meat flavour
The flavours are too weak and cannot be tasted
The combination of flavours is unbalanced. For example, a drink advertised as raspberry and lemon flavoured, where the raspberry flavour is overpowering the lemon
The taste is unbalanced, with high levels of sourness or bitterness
Additionally, flavour is increasingly important, especially with the rise of 'treat culture' and snacking. People are more willing to indulge in products that taste great and bring pleasure. This is particularly true for younger generations like Gen Z.
Conclusion
Flavour is a complex and powerful experience that can evoke memories and emotions. However, if the flavours do not meet consumers' expectations, it can lead to a disconnect and disappointment.
While every stage of the consumer journey is important, the ultimate deciding factor is the flavour profile of the product itself. For food and beverage start-ups and SME founders, understanding the significance and intricacy of flavour profiles is crucial in creating successful food and beverage products.
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