Flavor Mashups in Condiments
Condiments and sauces are essential to our food experiences. Perennial favorites such as ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard, ranch, and salad dressing add flavor, excitement, and texture to everyday dishes and snacks. At the same time, expanding consumer pallets yearn for new sensory experiences and indulgences.
These taste adventures include novel and innovative combinations. Consumers enjoy natural savory flavors, ethnic fusions, unusual or unexpected taste hybrids, and fresh takes on popular golden oldies–flavor mashups of familiar consumer favorites.
According to Innova Market Insights’ Top Ten Flavor Trends for 2021 report, flavor combination innovation is gaining momentum, with a third of consumers influenced by exotic or intriguing flavor juxtapositions1.
What Are Flavor Mashups?
Pairing condiment flavors can combine two familiar tastes, such as the regular combinations of mayo and mustard with ketchup. Alternatively, it can pair typical and unexpected profiles, such as mayonnaise and curry, mustard and honey or fuse two exotic tastes, such as strawberry and Asian sweet chilli sauce.
Profiles need not be from the same taste groups. For example, you can mix and match sweet and sour, natural savory flavors with sweet, sweet and salty, or sour and salty. All you need is imagination and creativity.
Kraft Heinz, a global heritage condiment brand, recently launched three limited-edition flavor mashups. They include Wasabioli – wasabi and garlic aīoli à l’ail; Hanch – hot sauce piquante and ranch; and Tarchup – tartar sauce tartare and ketchup. While the response to the mashups may be mixed, the combinations are undoubtedly exciting and novel, generating attention and trial for the brand. As Heinz put it, they “crowdsauced” the combinations from “the most random corners of the Internet” – from older social media posts.
Previous flavor fusion innovations from Heinz include Ketchili, Buffaranch, Kranch, Mayocue, and Mayomust, highlighting the extensive possibilities for mashup experimentation.
Which Flavors Are Trending?
Since the global pandemic and its travel restrictions, consumers are increasingly looking for far-flung flavor profiles beyond the familiar Italian, Mexican, and Chinese. According to Datassential, more than one in every two consumers go out of their way to try global tastes after learning about them, with above-average efforts among millennials and Gen Z2.
Especially prominent are Middle Eastern and Mediterranean tastes and combinations, including tzatziki, Baharat, sumac, harissa, Ras el hanout, gochujang, and za-atar. Other trending pairings include honey and sriracha, ranch and harissa, BBQ and orange peel, and turmeric and ginger.
However, incremental inclusion is wise, even with the growing interest in global food and beverage experiences. So, introduce these sought-after international flavors and sensations through versatile fusion sauces. Develop these condiments to add to familiar salads, burgers, fries, bowls, sandwiches, vegetable sides, and other traditional American dishes and snacks.
In addition, strategic collaboration can make such playful and experimental combinations more appealing and credible. Around half of consumers put more faith in a new brand or unfamiliar flavor hybrid when partnered with a well-known and trusted brand3.
Also important is the use of natural sweet and savory flavors and aroma ingredients, such as from Advanced Biotech.
Why Partner With Advanced Biotech for Innovative Flavor Hybrids?
Advanced Biotech produces an extensive range of pure, natural, plant-based, and EU-certified flavor and aroma molecules to add interest, authentic taste, and global appeal to your condiment innovation.
We supply high-quality, responsibly sourced, produced, and well-documented savory, sweet, sour, and salty ingredients, including bespoke flavor or aroma profiles on request. Please contact us for more information.
1 https://www.preparedfoods.com/articles/125505-flavor-mashups-for-new-sensory-experiences-in-food-beverages
2 https://insights.tampamaid.com/global-flavors-spicing-up-menu-options-with-exotic-ingredients
3 https://www.preparedfoods.com/articles/125505-flavor-mashups-for-new-sensory-experiences-in-food-beverages