Different by Design
The right flavor or flavor combination can draw consumers to a specific food or beverage over and over again, while the wrong one can keep them away in droves. Retailers that stay abreast of current and emerging flavor trends, therefore — and partner with flavor companies to create high-quality, great-tasting own-brand items — will have an advantage over their competitors.
Dare to be different
Flavors definitely can play a role in the creation of “destinationtype” private brand items — unique items that attract repeat visits to a particular banner. Chris Warsow, corporate executive chef for Bell Flavors & Fragrances, Northbrook, Ill., believes such products are extremely important for today’s retailers. He points to Monrovia, Calif.-based Trader Joe’s as an example of a retailer that executes well in this area, noting that the retailer’s products often are showcased — and talked about — at food-related gatherings he attends.
“That type of recognition as a trend leader does great traffic in your store,” he says. “They will then go for that particular product and then will be more likely to sample other products from the same retailer.”
Even a little bit of flavor differentiation can go a long way to boost sales.
“In the past, store brands differentiated their products by offering them at a lower cost,” says Michael Swenson, director of business development for Sensient Natural Ingredients, Turlock, Calif. “But now the growing store brands are looking to other differentiators, one of which is new flavors. This can be successful if the flavor is on trend, especially for Generation X, millennials and Generation Z, who are more adventurous diners.”
Unique flavors also can breathe new life into commodity items, says Mitch Padnos, national retail sales manager for Woodland Foods, Waukegan, Ill. In fact, according to industry data, flavor innovation drives incremental consumer purchases instead of cannibalizing existing sales.
“Plus, flavor differentiation can be much less risky than product innovation because consumers are already accustomed to purchasing the item,” he says. “Maybe most importantly, store brands can make innovative flavor options attainable to a vast majority of consumers who otherwise would not purchase a premium branded item in order to get a unique flavor offering.”
What’s more, consumers are coming to expect unique flavors and product line extensions when it comes to retailers’ own brands, maintains Cary Gammons, director of sales and marketing for Gamay Flavors, New Berlin, Wis. In response, retailers are beginning to be more like national brands in their approach, carrying, for example, special buys that mesh with flavor profiles found in trend-setting restaurants and magazines.
Although retailers could modify other product attributes to differentiate their private brand products, flavor often is the most important, explains Aaron Graham, director of creative services for Bell Flavors & Fragrances.
“Often, the trick is to find the right balance between a unique flavor [and] being too different from what consumers expect from the product,” he says.
But to find success via differentiation, retailers first need to gauge consumer awareness regarding trends and products and also ensure any planned differentiated items aren’t readily available elsewhere, notes Anton Angelich, group vice president – marketing for New York-based Virginia Dare. He points to potential differentiation opportunity for retailers in “products inspired by emerging ethnic cuisines such as Peruvian, Korean, Indian and Caribbean.”
Pinpoint opportunities
Flavor companies also could help retailers identify categories and products that are ripe for flavor innovation.
“Flavor companies like Virginia Dare conduct extensive consumer insights research that they share with their customers,” Angelich explains. “Providing this information in a timely way allows manufacturers to keep ahead of consumer trends and consumer wants, and accelerates the speed-to-market pathway. … If manufacturers of store brand products develop products early on based on emerging trends and flavor preferences, their products will enter the marketplace at the same time as the major brand launches,” he adds, allowing retailers to gain sales right at the start of the trend.
Colleen Roberts, director of sales for South Plainfield, N.J.-based Flavor Dynamics Inc., agrees that flavor companies are a valuable resource for flavor trends.
“We live in a multicultural country, so it is essential to identify your market and customize your product to meet the consumers’ expectations,” she adds.
Swenson says Sensient Natural Ingredients currently sees prime opportunities in the snack, bakery and cheese segments.
“The snack category continues to blossom as more individuals are eating smaller meals and are looking for more savory flavor alternatives,” he explains. “The food bar/meal replacement bar is a perfect example of this — mixing sweet, heat, protein and vegetables with a battery of many different flavors.”
Swenson adds that the bakery sector — in addition to replacing gluten-containing ingredients with sweet potato powder and other natural ingredients — is expanding into more savory notes and whole vegetables in recipes, while cheese could benefit from new flavor additions as well.
Opportunities also exist in categories that would benefit from the trend toward the hybridization of flavors. For example, Sensient Flavor’s Savory Flavors unit created the on-trend sweet-and-spicy Maple Mirch flavor, which combines the familiar flavor of maple with a more exotic Indian spice, notes Jean Shieh, marketing manager for Sensient Natural Flavors. The company showcased the flavor in an iced coffee concept at the recent IFT Annual Meeting & Food Expo in Chicago.
“You’re seeing a lot of hybridization of flavors, and it’s one of the ways that I see store brands being able to kind of set themselves apart,” says Roger Lane, marketing manager for Sensient Flavors’ Savory Flavors unit. “It’s easier for store brands to play with flavor. And that’s the way to do it, where it’s a very normalized flavor like maple and add something unique or exotic to make it more palatable to the average everyday consumer.”
Snack nuts also could spell opportunity for flavor innovation. For its part, Woodland Foods recently initiated a store brand-related project with a nut processing company with the goal of developing unique, innovative nut flavors, Padnos says. The project combined Woodland Foods’ expertise in flavor development, spice blending and more with the nut company’s know-how in the application and processing of nut topicals.
Gammons suggests that the opportunities to differentiate via flavors are virtually endless.
“Just look at what the brands are doing — pasta dishes from mac and cheese to side-dish items; potato and rice products; canned beans; snacks, snacks and more snacks from chips to popcorn to nuts; [and] beverages [such as] water, soda, coffee,” he says. “Retailers should explore working more closely with the ingredient suppliers of today to help them to stay on top of what’s new and up-and-coming trends.”
He adds that Gamay recently opened a best-in-class $1.5 million Innovation Center, also in New Berlin, that is designed to “deliver a superior level of creative flavor and taste solutions.”
As a flavor house, Bell Flavors & Fragrances also is able to spot trends, as well as changes in eating styles, Warsow says. He points to one current big trend that encompasses a “dynamic shift” from meals prepared out of center-store ingredients to value-added meat products and fresh meals from ready-to-eat cases. Many of the value-added meats popular with consumers today are slow-cooked in the sous vide method and feature very bold flavors.
“When you cook by this method, there is no potential for the traditional browning process that takes place in the oven,” he says. “However, it does yield a very moist and juicy product. We can add the ‘culinary process’ flavors to the [meat] before cooking to impart roasted or seared notes.”
Partner for success
Although retailers traditionally have relied on their store brand manufacturers when it comes to flavor-related decision-making, they might want to reconsider that approach. They could benefit from working directly with the product manufacturer and the flavor company starting at the ideation phase.
“Flavor companies offer the technical aspects and feasibility of a flavor in a new product system,” Roberts says. “We offer trend information and take into consideration labeling criteria [and] product environment for a specific system.”
Shieh notes that Sensient recently started engaging in what it calls a triangle approach, working not only with the manufacturers, but also with retailers’ marketing teams to share trend information and more.
“We start communication early on, before they even work on the products,” she explains.
As Lane points out, it’s a partnership between Sensient and the retailer.
“We have the information to give to them about what’s trending and what we see in the marketplace moving into the future,” he says.
Because flavor companies such as Virginia Dare work with such a vast array of companies in food and beverage product development, they really do get a good sense of where industry trends are headed, Angelich points out.
“This knowledge, along with the observance of flavor preference migration from one category to another, is truly valuable guidance information for product developers,” he says. “The beverage category is the most innovative and experimental, and many new product developments start in this industry and then often migrate to bakery, confectionery and dairy,” he adds.
Good retailer-manufacture-flavor house partnerships also can help ensure that the end product meets consumer expectations. As Padnos explains, formulations must be adapted according to the application, and the end product can suffer when the parties are not aligned.
Such partnerships also allow for complete control over the product development cycle, Warsow stresses. He says some retailers are not familiar with what a flavor house does, often seeing finished store brand products only after the manufacturer presents them.
“Sometimes it takes some convincing for the retailer to see the benefit. Sometimes they don’t see the benefit until they actually witness the synergies that exist to pivot on their needs quickly,” he says.
Graham notes that flavor companies also can weigh in early in the product development discussion as to which flavor profiles and flavor combinations likely will work, and which won’t.
“Additionally, flavor companies such as Bell can provide tools to help overcome any perceived hurdles in the development plan,” he says. “These might include flavor systems to supplement costly or process-intolerant agricultural products, targeting salty or sweet taste without the associated sodium or calories, etc.”