How to make a taste?

The taste laboratory is the heart of Roberts operations. Here, a large amount of the flavors that end up in the grocery store are invented, developed and tested as aromas and extracts in different beverages. Sometimes it may only take a week to develop a new flavor, sometimes it takes months. Taste is all about taste – and taste. Therefore, it is by no means certain that the aromas and extracts tested in our lab will get the chance on the market. The margins are small, and sometimes we and our clients simply do not find the right ones. Then the recipe ends up in our taste library.

To develop a taste is divided in several stages:

1) Together with the client, we decide who the taste should be developed for – children, adults or both? If it is an orange flavor, what character should it have? Should it taste sweet from the juice or have a slightly bitterer taste, of the orange peel?

2) We start to create the taste by mixing different aromas and raw materials. We taste, change, taste, change – together with the client. As I said, the margins are small, and it may be enough to get, for example, a little more sweetness into a taste for it to be just right.

3) Finally, it is decided whether the taste should be further developed into a commercial product, i.e. become a beverage sold in the grocery store

Our own taste library

In safe custody at Roberts there are binders with recipes for flavors since the 1950s. We save everything we try, recipes, information about raw materials, about suppliers and much more. Reference samples are saved for a limited time, as the samples change with storage and are affected by light and temperature. As you know, times are changing. Even if a taste is not enough to be transformed into a commercial product right now, it may be on the dot right at some point in the future. Then the contents of our taste library are very helpful.