Food flavors and fragrances are very complex substances. Flavor is the most complex ingredient of food. A flavor can be composed of half a dozen to several hundred molecules. Often, not a single molecule is responsible of the flavor by itself. Just as light is the reflection of unabsorbed wavelengths, the overall flavor of a food is due to the release of the volatile chemicals that the food matrix does not absorb. All these volatiles, whether they are inherent, added, or created during a particular process interact and blend to provide the overall flavor profile. Flavor suppliers will rightfully say that the flavor solution they created for any food system is custom tailored for that specific food system. any subsequent change brought to the fabrication process of that system will potentially have disastrous effects on its flavor. Similarly, switching the flavor supplier for a product will affect the product’s performance. It is therefore important to properly understand and control the release of volatiles in order to allow for a release of the proper odor profile. This can only be done if the matrix that the flavor is added into is well understood.

Because of increasing pressure to faster bring products from conception to market, food manufacturers have little or no time to understand their new prototypes in depth. They often do not know what flavor manufacturers need to know to make a flavor that performs well. While the flavor suppliers know about the stability of their own flavor solutions, they can only guess what will create issues in a specific food product. It is incumbent to the food manufacturer to know their products’ physicochemical properties and to help flavor suppliers create more stable flavor solutions, which will in turn, contribute to the success of the food manufacturer’s products.

Understanding flavor takes time, dedicated resources and an array of specific extractions and analytical techniques. Flavor analysis cannot be done by using only gas chromatography - mass spectrometry (GC-MS.) Flavor and fragrance chemicals have affect food products at extremely low concentrations---in the parts per million (ppm) and parts per billion (ppb) range. As an example, the human nose can detect one drop of the bell pepper pyrazine (3-isopropyl-2-methoxypyrazine) in 22 million gallons of water, but no analytical equipment existing today would be able to detect the fragrance in the same sample. This is the reason gas chromatography-olfactometry (GCO), a technique that uses a human nose as detector is a requirement for such studies. Lastly, flavor perception is not only related to the amount of flavor compounds present but it is also related to how these compounds are released into the headspace. In other words, the amount release by unit of time as well as the maximum amount liberated by the food will affect the overall perception of the flavor.

Flavor scientists have devised many techniques to help isolate compounds available in such low quantities. However, the wide array of existing extraction techniques all have their benefits and disadvantages. All have the potential to not only isolate, but also discard or destroy the flavor compounds. It is the role of the flavor scientist to combine the best extraction and analytical techniques to get at the identify the flavor, fragrance off-flavor, or off-odor of a product. Once the chemical make up is known, flavor or fragrance production can be optimized.

To be successful, flavor and fragrance projects require experts who know flavor science, the food manufacturing industry, and the community of flavor suppliers. Spectra Flavor & Fragrance Research are those experts. Let us help you today.