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Just how you choose which foods you burn in your chromatograph can make a difference too. A small strawberry may taste different from a plump strawberry; a just-ripe one will taste different from one that has gone pulpier and sweeter. For subtler flavorings, technologists may not want to touch the fruit at all, instead simply sampling the volatile gases it gives off. IFF scientists sometimes place a glass shroud around a carefully cultivated plant in a field or greenhouse, draw off the sweet, rich air with a syringe and use that as their flavor template. "It gives you a completely different flavor from what you'd get if you cut into the fruit," says Miller.
Once IFF's analysis labs are done taking the measure of a food and rebuilding its flavor, those flavors are sent out to other labs in the building to determine how they hold up in food products. In the dairy department, flavors are tested in ice creams, puddings and--most challengingly--yogurt. "Yogurt is a very dynamic system," says food technologist Dan O'Brien. "You start off one flavor at the beginning of the product's shelf life and get a very different one at the end." In the bakery department, the scientists fret over how flavors hold up when food is placed in an oven. "The flavor may be great in the lab," says O'Brien's colleague Brian Kelly, "but when we throw a little heat on it, adjustments may have to be made."
SWEETER! HOTTER!
It's in the world of candy, however, that the challenges and rewards are potentially greatest--if the manufacturer can come up with something that appeals to the biggest flavor consumers of all: kids. "Children, on average, prefer 60% more flavor in foods than adults do," says O'Brien. This is no surprise to their parents, who once loved consuming now-classic candies like Red Hots and Atomic Fireballs. But what's on the market today is not your daddy's candy.
Nestle does an especially good job of marketing to kids, particularly those from 8 to 12--the so-called tween group. Tweens enjoy such venerable tongue busters as SweeTarts and Laffy Taffy as well as such newer offerings as the Wonka candy line or the souped-up SweeTarts Shockers. The Shockers are ultrasour SweeTarts in a chewy fruit base that may be unpalatable to parents but are catnip to their kids. Young consumers also like it if candies have what manufacturers call play value. SweeTarts Gummy Bugs offer all the flavor punch of ordinary SweeTarts, with the added value of coming in insect shapes. "First you see all the colors running together on the candy, and that's a lot of fun," Nestle's Nicole Ifcher says. "Then you decide how you're going to eat it. Do you bite the head off? Then you put it in your mouth, and the sugar sanding signals something sour, but you have the chewy texture underneath."