FEB 23- BUILDING BETTER CHOCOLATES EVENT RECAP

On Feb 23rd Sensapure Flavors hosted the “Building Better Chocolates” training event for Sensapure customers. Nutrition brands and manufactures sent their product development teams to Salt Lake City for the morning to learn about the art and science of creating better tasting chocolate products.

Why Chocolate? (Because it’s chocolate!)

For decades, the top two selling flavors of all protein supplements have been chocolate and vanilla. And let’s face it… chocolate is just more fun. From decadent fudge flavors, to bright and sharp dark chocolates, there are as many ways to fall in love with chocolate as there are different uses for the tasty flavor

Some key words people used to describe their favorite chocolates were smooth, creamy, rich, and complex. With this information we are able to see how much mouthfeel impacts overall chocolate preference. We can use this information when formulating to include creamers, fats, and gums to recreate a similar consumer experience.

It’s all about the growth of Plant Proteins

Years ago, a protein shake meant one thing. A whey protein, artificially sweetened, creamy milk chocolate shake. And getting the flavor system right on a product with plenty of Sucralose and milk solids wasn’t all that tough. After all, it was essentially a powdered chocolate milkshake. But times have changed. The desire to swap out artificial sweeteners for non-sugar natural alternatives, and ditch the whey protein for either plant based or collagen sources makes the development of great tasting protein supplements a little more difficult.

With year-over-year growth exceeding 30% for plant-based protein, meal replacements, and powdered supplements, the need to find ways to deliver great tasting chocolate products has never been higher.

We started with craft chocolate

The day began with a chocolate tasting presented by the same folks who host Chocolate Fest every year in Salt Lake City… Caputo’s European Fine Foods. Adri Pachelli, head of education and all things chocolate at Caputo’s lead the tasting with a review of cacao history, cultivation, processing, fermentation techniques, roasting secrets, milling specs, and of course a deep dive into how crushed cacao becomes craft chocolate.

The Science of Chocolate

With our new found vocabulary and educated chocolate taste buds, we let Doug Gledhill, one of Sensapure’s certified flavor chemists walk us through how we can mimic the various component parts of chocolate flavors found in nature using either natural or artificial ingredients. “As a flavor chemist we need to know all about nature so we can recreate it in the lab,” said Gledhill. “Cocoa Powder alone can have over a thousand different naturally occurring chemicals.”

Let the Tasting Begin

The group of 30+ participants then tasted four different categories of products (whey / plant / collagen / natural sweeteners / gums and masking agents), evaluating each of the 12 products on sweetness levels, flavor attributes, and overall preference.

During this portion of the taste testing experience, Sensapure was able to demonstrate some key changes that lead to the overall improvement of the product. Using the Sensapure Tasting App, we were able to record the unbiased feedback in our audience’s preference on the samples before and after Sensapure solutions were applied.

An Inside Look at a New Flavor Company

“I knew that we would have people come, I just didn’t expect this crowd,” one of our Flavor Chemists, Mariano Gascon said as he looked around the room. “It’s amazing.” We had a great time partnering with Dyad Labs for our open house to highlight our new flavor company a few weeks ago. It rewarding for the whole team to see all of the hard work that went into building the new, renovated space. We filled the space with customers, potential customers and friends and families. We ate great food, gave tours of the new space, and told over 300 people what we’re passionate about creating.

Protein Taste Tests

Some of the highlights from the open house include the Dyad “Guess That Protein” activity. We had our visitors taste different types of protein like whey or soy. Then they had to attempt to identify which was which. We also had the “Sensapure Soda Bar.” Our flavor chemists created the perfect drink flavors for a self-mixing experiment. Last but not least, we had our Street Taco station from our favorite stand, El Paisa Grill. “It was all that we had planned it to be,” our founder and CEO, Jeff Reynolds said.

The new space represents a year of hard work, contracting, designing and coordinating to get it up and running. “It has been a long project,” said Reynolds “sometimes we thought it would never end.” Reynolds says now that the project is complete, they’re thrilled with the result and what they’ve accomplished since launching.

Our Building’s Purpose

The bright, transparent, new space is impressive. However, Reynolds’ intention for the building is about more than an upbeat and inspiring environment for the team. “We really wanted to build a customer experience here where our customers and potential customers can come and we can help them as a technology partner.”

This day wasn’t possible without those who attended, met our team and heard what we’re building together with customers. This new space will create opportunities to do what we love most, the art of creating flavors. We can’t wait to operate in this new space as we collaborate with our customers to bring their product bases to life with our flavors through the unique Sensapure development process.

Thank you to all of those who came and have helped us along the way to reach our goals. If you missed out, check out this short video we put together to remember some of highlights of the day.

– Your Sensapure team