Finding new flavors
Hello Master, as we’re soon going to reopen our shop, I’d like to offer new flavors to our clients, but not the usual mixtures you usually find around, as I’d like a flavor that would give my shop its identity, but I don’t want to seem boring. Could you help me? Edward, Chester
Hello Edward, a consumer’s choice of food products is tightly linked to the effect that the product itself has on smell and sight. The olfactory and gustatory sensory stimuli that the products give us always get together with the personal and subjective that a consumer has, linked to education, culture, environment and finance. Therefore food doesn’t just reward nutrition, but also, even more so, it represents one of life’s pleasures. I’m probably repeating myself, but nowadays in civilized world we rarely suffer from hunger and food becomes an experience that touches all senses. Food pairings that, depending on their molecular and aromatic composition, stimulate long forgotten memories, is nothing new: we’re talking of the so-called “foodapairing”, that is, the trend of mixing food. Such pairings must be made thoughtfully and not on the fly, as you also said when you talk about mixtures that, in my opinion, have no reason to exist. Most of the time they are made without giving the product a real meaning and they end up being mixture that include anything in order to create something new. Actually new products should stimulate the client and convince them to buy it, and they should also be characterized in a way that is far from the ordinary. They should often have original and unusual appearances and presentations, which doesn’t mean to just put a chocolate praline on top of the gelato to make clear what the product is (or even worse, a still sealed yogurt container). Well, all these actions could be amusing, but they aren’t neither elegant nor probably hygienic. The foodpairing trend comes from the need of looking for new flavor combinations and pairings can be made following different criteria, such as a similarity between elements that share similar aroma, or contrast, when ingredients have little to nothing in common. Actually, it is a scientific research (www.foodpairing.be) that starts from the molecular composition of food and beverages.
The main rule is that food, in order to enhance on another must share the same main aromatic components. That said, making a new product your shop’s emblem could be a double-edged sword, because if the new product you’d like to introduce is disliked by your customers, it would have a bed effect on the shop itself. I don’t intend to make you give up on your project of making one flavor the distinctive emblem of your business, but before you choose it as a brand, you should be sure that the flavor had positive reviews. Listed below, you can see some rules you should follow to prepare new flavors with a high appeal:
1. They should be flavors that are part of your best sellers, which are well-liked by your clients.
2. They should have some crunchy elements, as the crunch, which can be heard when biting into something of a different texture is very gratifying. Moreover, biting crushes the food into smaller pieces, increasing the available surface and making the aromatic molecules better perceived.
3. They should have a creamy element, because of the different textures, too.
4. They should be unique products, not a copy (we already know the “American Cookie” flavor).
5. They should have a name that is easy to remember.
6. Their parings should depend either on similarity or contrast (sweet-sour/ acidic/basic).
7. Remember not to make the flavor too heavy in order to avoid negative effects (too many sweet ingredients or too sour or too crunchy).
8. Last, but not least, determine its price depending in
the food cost.
The so-called new flavors, for whose production we
have a specific course, should be unique products,
well-studied from the beginning and then tested several
times with a critical eye: you don’t always get the right
taste first try…it actually almost never happens!
Good luck.
