Patric Food & Beverage Development

Food Scientist with a Chef's Palate

Articles / Alan McClure

Alan McClure

13 Things Every Nutraceutical Company Should Know

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The universe of nutraceuticals is rapidly expanding, and there’s a lot to discover. For example, the gourmet nutraceuticals market remains mostly untapped. But that is already starting to change…

Will you be ahead of the curve? Or find yourself struggling to catch up?

Here are some important factors to consider; from an experienced food scientist to any company hoping for further success in the nutraceuticals market.

  1. Account for bitterness from the beginning

Many of the highest quality botanical extracts or isolates are bitter. This is because the molecular structures of many healthful compounds tend to activate our bitterness receptors. Flavonoids are a perfect example.

But don’t worry—there are numerous ways to manage bitterness in nutraceuticals.

One smart, simple way is to use flavors that complement the extracts or bitter compounds in question. Picture sweet-tart ruby-red grapefruit, loaded with fruity and floral terpenes masking off flavors in a CBD formulation. Or you might use science-based bitterness masking ingredients that help block the perception of bitterness; either through central cognitive effects, or by preventing the compounds from actually making contact with bitterness receptors on the tongue and in the throat.

Sadly, too many nutraceutical companies just blot out the flavor with additional high-intensity artificial or other non-nutritive sweeteners. Don’t do that. Your customers won’t like it.

  1. Invest in quality ingredients

In general, use as few ingredients as possible—and choose the highest quality for each of them. Skimping just creates weak links in the big picture of your nutraceuticals formulation. You may be able to cut your bottom line out of the gate…but you won’t wrangle in those invaluable return customers who are searching for the best, and can be deeply loyal when they find it.

Quality ingredients make nutraceuticals taste much, much better, let you market clean-label products, and keep your customers drooling for more.

  1. Research your market

Don’t just start crafting blind. Know your audience. Who are you trying to help? What products are they buying? How do they like to dose?

Then once you’re formulating, set up sensory analysis panels with expert descriptive analysis panelists, and set up more with a set of untrained consumers.

Food science can help systematically determine which variation of your product is actually the best for the greatest group of consumers.

Solid, scientific research is increasingly crucial as the nutraceuticals market continues to open up with new applications, consumer demands, and continued growth.

  1. Packaging matters

At the end of the day, you’re not selling products. You’re delivering an experience to your customers related to something that means the world to them–their health.

Part of that experience includes the packaging and branding. Thoughtful, functional packaging can go a long way toward building a consistent and loyal customer base who keep returning for more—and equally important, tell their friends about it.

Nutraceuticals packaging people return for:

  • Guilt-free compostable packaging
  • Reusable containers, giftable even as empties
  • Sleek, discreet, no-frills, ergonomic
  • Creatively and completely child-safe
  1. Pay attention to shelf life

Whatever nutraceutical product you produce, it will change over time. And you really can’t plan for any best-case scenario. Your products have to last under real-world conditions.

For example, don’t assume that any emulsion (even nanoemulsions) will be stable for 6 months or longer once incorporated into a beverage. It depends upon formulation, packaging, and the chance of temperature abuse in the marketplace or during transportation. Make sure that the shelf-life of any emulsion you use has been characterized—and be aware that depending upon the formulation of the beverage you add it to, that shelf life can change dramatically.

The same is true of all ingredients. That’s why part of science-based nutraceuticals product formulation includes laboratory shelf-life testing.

One bad experience will make people shy away from your entire brand—even if they’ve had loads of great experiences before that—and you can be sure they’ll tell their friends the whole mortifying story.

There’s a saying in marketing: The price of one negative is 199 affirmatives.

  1. Extracts: don’t cut corners

Use a first-run extract from quality plant materials, or a distillate/isolate made from it, that has flavor components that enhance your recipe, rather than ones that you have to cover up.

Remember, the more that your active ingredients are purified from reprocessed waste-stream material, rather than raw, the higher the likelihood that they will bring more off-flavors. Please, people—there are plenty of raw nutraceutical ingredients available for making high-quality first-run extracts and distillations thereof. There’s no need to chemically squeeze out every last drop of active ingredient from the waste stream.

Would you cook with the dregs of a third or fourth olive-oil pressing? No. So why would you make nutraceuticals with the equivalent?

  1. Avoid (many) nanoemulsions

Nutraceutical nanoemulsions may offer the benefit of faster metabolization of the payload and higher bioavailability—but they are generally terrible for making delicious nutraceuticals. Why? If the active ingredient is bitter–see above–then a nanoemulsion of that ingredient will be even more extremely bitter because nano droplets present more total surface area for contact with taste-bud receptors.

Additionally, no emulsion is infinitely stable. Not even the best-made nanoemulsion on earth.

If buying or preparing your own microemulsions or nanoemulsions, make sure that droplet size can be verified in some meaningful way (e.g. laser diffraction particle size distribution analysis, or in some cases a Coulter Counter to measure individual droplet sizes).

  1. Beverages are risky—there’s a better way

Formulating consistent, shelf-stable nutraceutical beverages is a challenge. Especially when you can’t rely on dispensaries to have refrigerated display space.

But here’s a little food-science secret for you: There’s a way you can launch an infinite product line of nutraceutical beverages—with variable dosages!—by instead offering a series of flavored nutraceutical drops for transforming any existing beverage into a far more nutritious one.

Flavored nutraceutical drops might include:

  • Cinnamon
  • Vanilla
  • Winter spice
  • Tropical Fruit
  • Mint
  • Herbal
  • Citrus

Then part of your nutraceuticals marketing strategy could include recipe ideas or pairings with existing beverages.

Make your own nutraceutical-infused Vanilla Cola, or warm winter workdays with a cinnamon nutraceutical latte. Lighten up a dim day with an alcohol-free mint julep. The possibilities are endless. The goal now is to create the best product line of flavored nutraceutical drops that food science can deliver!

  1. Everyone is making gummies. Don’t do the same thing that everyone is doing.

But if you have to make gummies, make them in a way no one else is!

Get your R&D team building an exhaustive list of what your competitors are doing, and then come up with something that is new and different. You may actually notice that the gourmet nutraceutical niche is still pretty wide open. There are a million and one much-loved flavors that still haven’t really been explored.

Here’s a pro tip, though. If you’re making gummies, use real fruit! This is one way to stand out in the gummy crowd. Most nutraceutical gummy producers are still using sugar, syrups, and sometimes even artificial flavorings. Using real fruit purees instead not only tastes better, but can also clean up your ingredient list and help you capture a lucrative niche of loyal customers who want top quality real foods.

Learn about fruit purees in gummies

  1. Consistency is crucial

Trained food professionals like chefs can only get you so far. Especially when it comes to scaling nutraceutical production for growth.

Up-market nutraceuticals and all other dietary supplements are the result of careful scientific formulation accounting for multiple variables.

Food production variables:

  • Aroma
  • Taste
  • Mouthfeel
  • Chemistry
  • Physics
  • Food safety
  • Available manufacturing techniques
  • Consumer expectations

That’s a lot to juggle. Take it from a fellow entrepreneur who learned long ago the importance of delegating to experts. And as a result, I have much love for CPAs, electrical engineers, and HVAC professionals. Experts rarely cost you more because they make up in efficiency for their higher hourly price tag.

  1. Things will go wrong

It’s inevitable in food production that issues will arise and formulations will need tweaking. Especially if you try scaling a recipe without adequate food science knowledge.

Part of being a successful nutraceutical firm includes recognizing problems you can’t solve before they become major (and expensive). Food scientists have a lot of experience with empirical problem-solving. The upfront expense can save you time and money down the line, fixing errors that magnify with every step of the production process.

  1. Don’t be afraid to seek outside help

If you’re still reading this, you already realize you can’t make top quality nutraceuticals on your own and often even if you have a solid in-house R&D team. Fortunately there are many types of consultants in the food industry, with a wide range of experience and training. Naturally each brings their own strengths and weaknesses.

You’ll pay less for someone without a PhD, without formal experiment-design capabilities, and without two decades of experience making best-of-class, record-award-winning foods and beverages.

But you’ll also get a lot less in return. It all depends on where you want to go with your business.

  1. Invest in food science; get massive returns

Daunted by the price tag of experienced food science consulting? That’s understandable. I ran a small manufacturing business for years, so I know the feeling of expenses adding up.

But think about it this way: Putting up $10-$15k for a delicious science-based formulation isn’t expensive—it’s valuable. Infusing your products with unbeatable consistency, gourmet quality, and standout creativity can vault your nutraceuticals over the heads of the competition.

That’s the key to attracting those critical return customers and nurturing brand loyalty.

Plus outsourcing science problems to a scientist frees up your R&D team to work on things where they can be the most efficient. Only you know how much that would be worth for your business.

Does any of this really matter?

After all, you can spend market research dollars on figuring out the highest price people will pay for the mediocre flavors you’re turning out.

You can ask your customers to accept a nutraceutical experience far below the threshold of what’s possible, while depriving them of the chance to experience the soaring potential of delicious, precise, consistent gourmet nutraceuticals developed for pan-sensory enjoyment and long-term brand growth.

And you can push them toward other companies who are doing it right.

And in the process, you’ll wind up shaving away some of that profit margin anyway, because it invariably costs more to market to new customers than it does to nurture loyal ones. Not to mention the cost of fixing errors down the line that could have been prevented.

As always, in the free market system the choice is yours whether to focus on quick short-term gains—or tap into the magic of food science and put out products that build deep customer loyalty, wow influencers, and potentially change the nutraceuticals game.

Whatever you decide…we’ll be here.

Do I Need a Food Science Consultant? Summary

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Quick Version (3 minutes)

So you’ve come upon a problem in your business that calls for expert help.

Remember: Not all food consultants are created equal

There are a lot of very smart and talented food consultants specializing in various elements of the food and beverage industry. 

But when it comes to solving problems they’ve never seen before—even the brightest, most creative food consultants likely don’t have the training or experience to design an effective experiment to figure out exactly why your edible baked good is showing sugar bloom, or set up precise formulation trials to find the best possible recipe for your next CBD gummy release.

What should you consider when hiring a food science consultant?

There are a few things to think about, before reaching out about food science consultation.

Size/Stage of your business

There’s no hard and fast rule, but we generally work with operational companies or startups who already have dedicated budgets for R&D and want to get moving asap.

We may not be the right choice for throwing ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks. Though for a fee we can help you run a formal ideation process to figure out what the best product to start with might be.

For self-funded people hoping to get started with a somewhat smaller budget, let’s talk once you’ve done some preliminary research, have a specific product in mind, and have created a viable business plan with a solid source of R&D funding to get started.

Type of project

Keep in mind that not every project needs the specialization that a food science consultant brings. For example, non-science-based food consultants can help with:

  • Co-packing (contract packager/manufacturer) searches
  • Sales & marketing
  • Branding

But when it comes to the following, we are just what the doctor ordered:

  • Edible product formulation
  • Technical problem solving
  • Facility setup and scaling
  • Optimizing for multiple objectives
  • Shelf-life or other food-quality advising

Just remember, as with anything, with food science, you get what you pay for.

High-level specialists always cost a little more—because the returns are much greater.

“I get it, food science is valuable, and I need to budget for it. But what should that budget look like?”

Budget

Every project is different, of course, in terms of time, materials, and expenses like lab fees.

If you’re in a rush, hoping for a silver-bullet solution done cheap, quick, and dirty—then we’re simply not the right choice for the job.

But if you’re on a mission to bore into the very building blocks of whatever obstacle you’re facing—and rearrange it into a stairway to lasting success, tell us here, and we’ll work on a proposal that will take your specific budget and needs fully into consideration, to find a plan with which everyone will be happy.

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How to Make Better Functional Chocolate with Food Science

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Have you noticed that nearly all the functional chocolates available these days range from waxy and cloying, to mediocre and just barely tolerable?

Trust me, I’m a scientist—I’ve carried out careful sensory evaluation on a significant sample size of the functional chocolates. The results have been…disappointing. But I’m still hopeful. Why?

Because it means there’s a huge opportunity for a functional foods company (like yours) to corner the market niche of high-quality functional chocolate.

Until that happens though, we’re all consigned to gulping down “chocolates” that taste like muddy, bittersweet medicine. Gross.

At least each dose is small enough to take down in a bite or two…

But what if I told you that functional chocolate can be as fantastically flavored and gourmet as anything you’d find in a San Francisco Whole Foods or from a multi-generation French chocolate maker?

It just takes a little focused food science and finesse.

How to use functional ingredients in chocolates

I’m glad you asked. Whether you are trying to incorporate CBD, melatonin, or a newly available functional ingredient into your chocolate—high quality functional ingredients should be your starting point for making functional chocolate, not an afterthought.

Most functional chocolate producers add their functional ingredients almost as an afterthought. It’s just there to pack a punch and deliver a dose. So they can boast some fantastic milligram total on the packaging, and shove mediocre products down our greedy throats.

But don’t our greedy tongues deserve to be in on the experience too? Shouldn’t the chocolates we eat TASTE as good as they are a benefit to our health?

If you agree, here’s the start of an answer:

Think of your functional ingredient as a flavor ingredient. Not just a magic or medicinal one.

If it has clear aroma, bitter, or astringent notes, for example, these should be considered as components of the product from the ground up, not at the final moment.

What’s the best functional ingredient for chocolate?

First and foremost, invest in high-quality ingredients that have minimal off-flavors, if possible. In poorly purified ingredients there can be an array of unpleasant flavors. This is particularly common in the growing edibles industry.

But this is usually avoidable, because there are often a number of functional ingredient producers/vendors representing a range of qualities from cheap and dirty tasting, to clean and virtually without aroma, even if bitterness still needs to be dealt with. 

Because don’t your customers deserve better?

So why would you use anything other than high-quality ingredients in functional chocolates?

How to make high-quality functional chocolate?

Be thoughtful about every ingredient!

Making top quality chocolate always revolves around at least three main taste elements: sweet, bitter, and sour. Not to mention aroma and other sensory characteristics like astringency.

Cocoa is naturally bitter, and so are many functional ingredients. To compensate for the bitterness of functional ingredients, many brands will simply drop the cocoa percentage and drive up the sugar. But all of that sweetness also drives out the complexity.

There are many ways to mask, balance, and/or incorporate bitterness in functional foods, such as CBD-containing edibles, but remember—every adjustment you make in a chocolate recipe has a ripple effect.

Choosing ingredients that enhance existing flavors while naturally balancing those that tend to be more unpleasant, can go a long way toward creating top-quality functional chocolate to enchant the market. There are many ingredients we can use with this seemingly magical ability. If you’re wondering, one such great example is sea salt. It packs a huge punch when it comes to enhancing flavor of virtually any product.

Also, remember…

You don’t need to go bean-to-bar for gourmet functional chocolate

As a functional chocolate producer, you’re better off as a chocolatier rather than a chocolate maker. Going all the way back to the bean adds little to your goals and process except extra steps and stress.

Chocolate maker is someone who makes chocolate from scratch, using different percentages of cacao (cocoa beans that need to be sourced, roasted, and further processed) and other ingredients.

Chocolatier sources finished chocolate from a chocolate maker, and adds ingredients and flavors to create their own bar or confection.

You should certainly source one or more high-quality chocolates that will pair well with the flavor and aroma profile of whichever functional ingredient(s) you choose. And another thing…

Don’t try to cram maximum functional ingredients into every bite

Not only does that let your customer enjoy a few more bites of your delicious chocolate per dose, but decreasing the density of functional ingredient also automatically decreases the bitterness you have to deal with.

This can work on a marketing level too. Who sells more bars? The brand with 10 doses per bar, or the one that is super delicious and mouthwatering, costs less, and sacrifices only a few doses?

Summary: How does food science lead to better functional chocolate?

When it comes to formulating the best functional chocolate for the market, there are a lot of elements to consider.

  • Functional ingredients vendors
  • Format of the functional ingredients (oils, powders, etc.)
  • Dosage
  • Cocoa percentage
  • Mouthfeel
  • Appearance
  • Sweet, sour, bitter balance
  • Overall flavor bouquet

As a food scientist with a PhD in flavor chemistry, when it comes to functional chocolate formulation, one of my most important and unique tools is formal experimental-design. I have the software, lab experience, and deep knowledge of taste and flavor on a molecular level that you can’t get anywhere else.

And by the way, before becoming a functional food science consultant, I was for many years an award-winning chocolate maker and confectioner, with additional experience in formulation of bakery items, ice cream, beverages, and more.

Any worthwhile chocolate consultant could hopefully help you source a decent chocolate; but only food science can help you pinpoint the best possible version, based on multi-variable experiment setup, multi-objective optimization, and formal sensory analysis (including consumer testing, if you have the budget and time).  

So what it comes down to fundamentally is this: What are you trying to achieve?

Are you trying to make excellent-quality functional chocolate that loyal customers will buy over and over again because it’s so delicious?

Or are you just trying to get a bunch of one-time sales?

If you answered Yes to the first question, reach out and let’s formulate some gourmet functional chocolate at a quality level that still rarely exists in the functional foods market.

MORE: Want to see more about how functional chocolate formulation works? Follow us on LinkedIn!

Do I Need a Food Science Consultant?

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So you’ve come upon a problem in your business that calls for expert help. You’ve browsed some food consultants’ websites and seen a lot of exciting promises and impressive portfolios. But can they help you, or do you need a food science consultant?

Food consultants in general know a lot. And they’ve helped a lot of businesses to achieve success.

But who do you turn to when you don’t know what you need? How do you get the best bang for your buck? What kind of expert should you be looking for?

Well, like all things in craft and science, that depends on several variables.

Not all food consultants are created equal

There are a lot of very smart and talented food consultants specializing in various elements of the food and beverage industry. 

Maybe they’ve worked for years at a RTD beverage company, and have a vast body of experience and knowledge, offering incredible consulting value for beverage producers.

Maybe they were a master brewer at a well-known craft brewery, and have tons of insight on fermentation and flavor balance.

Or maybe they’re a marketing genius with a knack for spotting opportunities in the food and beverage market.

But what if you want to scale your gourmet cannabis candy formulation for cost-effective manufacturing? 

Or what if you want to remove the alcohol from something that normally has alcohol in it, and still have it taste incredible?

Or let’s say you have a solid customer base and you want to formulate a new product that appeals to the broadest segment of them, meaning delicious with no room for error?

When it comes to solving problems they’ve never seen before—even the brightest, most creative food consultants likely don’t have the training or experience to design an effective experiment to figure out exactly why your edible baked good is showing sugar bloom, or set up precise formulation trials to find the best possible recipe for your next CBD gummy release.

There’s nothing wrong with that limitation—after all, most food consultants don’t have a food science degree, let alone a doctorate in flavor chemistry, resting on a solid foundation of formal experiment design/analysis and sensory-science experience. And as long as they don’t pretend to offer something they can’t, food consultants are an important contributor to the world of edible production.

But the fact is, there are some problems in food and beverage production that can only be solved through rigorous food science. And that’s where a food science consultant comes in.

What to consider when hiring a food science consultant

There are a few things to think about, before reaching out about food science consultation. While we’re always rooting for your success, your situation may not be the best fit for what we do. At least not yet…

Size of your business

There’s no hard and fast rule, but we generally work with medium to larger companies or well-organized startups who have budgets for R&D.

Whether that comes from established revenue streams, or venture capital doesn’t matter as much as the drive to do what it takes to get to the root of whatever we’re trying to solve.

For some projects we may also train members of your team to run certain elements, so we can be as efficient as possible with our direct consultation time. If you have people on your team who you trust to play such a role, we have even more options available. We don’t always need to be on-site for the magic of food science to work.

Business stage

You don’t have to be a 30-year brand for food science consulting to make sense—but we’re generally not the right choice for throwing ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks.

We work with well-funded startups and generational food manufacturers alike, who have a specific challenge or idea they’re hoping to delve into deeply. Food science is about precision and investigation. Not aimless brainstorming.

For self-funded people with a good idea and no idea what’s next…let’s talk once you’ve done some preliminary research, have a specific product in mind, and have created a viable business plan with a solid source of funding to get started.

Type of project

Keep in mind that not every project needs the specialization that a food science consultant brings. For example, you don’t need a food scientist just to outsource the manufacturing of your product. There are plenty of so-called Co Packers set up to do just that, for any type of food you can think of.

Non-science-based food consultants can help with:

  • Kitchen-to-carton product development
  • Co-packing (contract packager/manufacturer)
  • Sales & marketing
  • Branding

But when it comes to edible product formulation, technical problem solving, scaling, optimizing for multiple objectives, and shelf-life or other food-quality advising—food science offers an array of tools for getting precision results and eliminating expensive guesswork.

Don’t need the power of food science? Here’s a helpful directory of food consultants across a variety of fields.

Budget constraints

Please be clear and upfront about the available budget for your project. This may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how many people try to prevaricate, hoping for some kind of price match against other food consultant quotes they’ve gathered.

But that ain’t how it works. This is food science. You get what you pay for.

It’s not worth your time for us to get deep into the problem at hand, only to balk at the project proposal price tag. We can help you make the most of your budget, and the quality of our work may seem miraculous to the untrained eye—but we can’t magically make something out of nothing, and we don’t work on spec.

Budget accordingly, and you’ll get the returns you’re looking for.

Why are food science consultants expensive?

Science isn’t simply a body of knowledge. It’s a very specific process for understanding our world by isolating variables and eliminating bias in observation.

It’s not expensive; it’s valuable.

Food science isn’t just fill-in-the-blank. Designing effective experiments requires a lot of experience and creativity. High-level specialists always cost a little more—because the returns can be much greater.

A doctorate in food science comes with more than just a fancy title and framed certificate. It represents thousands of hours immersed in the best education, labs, and methods in the world. It indicates a mind sculpted to make connections, up and down the scale.

But again, you’re not just paying for all the knowledge we bring to bear. You’re paying to access a portal to overcome any obstacle that can be pieced apart by science, from appearance and sensory analysis to molecular activity.

If you had the budget to hire a full-time food scientist with that level of training, you could expect to pay an easy six-figure salary plus benefits.

But don’t worry—a lot of food-science problems can be solved with just a few days of direct consulting, via experiment design and training your team to conduct the data collection.

How much does a food science consultant cost?

Every project is different, of course, in terms of time, materials, and expenses like lab fees.

If we want to get down to the core of the problem—which we do, right?—it’ll generally take at least a full day of investigation and research. Effective food science isn’t one of those two-hour turnaround magic shows.

We don’t waste any time, but we also don’t cut corners. Food science is a systematic approach to problem solving. There’s investigation and research, experiment design and data collection, analysis and recommendations.

Experiments can take a few days to set up. If we need to collect data, we’ll train your team to do it to keep expenses minimal if possible, but training will take another day or so, and then there is analysis and reporting.

If you’re in a rush, hoping for a silver-bullet solution done cheap, quick, and dirty—then we’re simply not the right choice for the job.

But if you’re on a mission to bore into the very building blocks of whatever obstacle you’re facing—and rearrange it into a stairway to lasting success—then we’d love to hear what you’re working on. Tell us here.

Problem Solving with Food Science: Experimental Design

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In the spring of 2022, I did some technical food-science-based problem solving for a small but fast-growing, independent cheesecake manufacturer in the Midwest.

They’d been putting out an excellent line of products for almost 40 years. But they had discovered an intermittent defect—which is one of the trickiest types of food-production problems to solve. And it had been eluding them for a while.

They’d tried getting help from other consultants, but to no avail…partially because this was during Covid and no one was willing to visit the facility. But this isn’t the kind of problem solving you can do without seeing the product up close enough to taste, and checking out the production process in person.

So I put on an N95 and took a trip to the cheesecake factory in question. What I found was an impeccably run, gleaming facility filled with proud employees doing their very best to turn out the greatest cheesecakes in the country;  I was impressed by everything I saw there. But extreme professionalism wasn’t enough to solve their cheesecake defect.

Based on their own research and analysis, their quality control team had already figured out that the issue was probably sugar bloom—but they didn’t know what was causing the problem nor how to solve it.

What is sugar bloom?

In confections and baked goods, sugar molecules can sometimes crystallize on the surface. Though it isn’t harmful and doesn’t affect taste or mouthfeel, sugar bloom can mar the appearance of an otherwise perfect confection; especially for something like chocolate where you want an even, glossy sheen. 

Unfortunately, sugar bloom can look like mold to the untrained eye. And that customer perception can be a big problem, leading to returns due to food safety concerns, even though there is no safety issue at all.

In fact, sugar bloom isn’t uncommon in food production, but the cause isn’t always clear. It can happen because of humidity changes, where surface moisture evaporates leaving behind fine crystals of sugar. It can also occur when you freeze a water-based product, because some of that previously liquid water is no longer available to keep sugar in solution.

Before I visited the facility, I explained what my process would entail, including certain costs associated with running a comprehensive experiment (e.g. chemical testing and materials).

They said, “Do whatever you need to do. We have to solve the problem.”

Solving the problem of sugar bloom in cheesecake using food science

Luckily for them, you don’t need an in-house professor of food science to apply high-level scientific method to your food-production process.

In fact, I only spent three days on-site in the factory, for fact-finding, experimental design, and staff training on how to gather relevant and impactful data.

Day 1

When I visited the facility and saw the actual cheesecakes with sugar bloom and tasted scrapings from the surface, I was convinced that it was indeed sugar bloom. But recognizing what the problem is doesn’t help you figure out why, and speculation isn’t science.

There are multiple ways to approach problem solving with sugar bloom, but it really depends upon the exact underlying cause. Just knowing that varying the product’s sugar and water content is relevant is simply not enough.

Even in a recipe with minimal ingredients, it doesn’t make sense to look at just the sugar and water, especially because most ingredients in a cheesecake contain some amount of water, though water itself is not actually directly added as an ingredient. So instead, we looked at each and every ingredient and relevant parts of their production process as potential variables—which is the first step to figuring out how many experimental treatments (i.e. test batches) we might need in order to find and solve the exact problem.

Day 2

We had about a dozen variables we wanted to test. But that could easily get out of hand (in terms of cost and labor) to run the number of experimental treatments required to analyze even that short list of variables.

Fortunately for the cheesecake folks, my PhD work included deep studies of chemometrics—including formal experimental design—uniquely preparing me with an almost comical level of experience, theory, and software knowhow for designing just this kind of experiment. And I did it in a more cost-effective, labor-efficient way than most of my food-science consultant peers would be able to.

Not to bore you with the details, but we optimized the experimental design using a split-plot structure that essentially allows you to efficiently test multiple variables at once, even when some of them are hard to change, and we narrowed our field by focusing on variable ranges that seemed viable and wouldn’t ruin the product flavor or texture.

Then I trained a number of their staff in basic sensory (organoleptic) analysis so they could gather meaningful data on cakes from every treatment.

To make the most efficient use of time and budget for problem solving, I set them up for testing in a manner similar to consumer analysis (where you ask untrained people to rate a few key sensory factors)—but we used a panel of their team members who were already deeply familiar with the characteristics of the products. Their familiarity allowed us to focus on precision at the level of another method called descriptive analysis, which would normally require much more panelist training (adding significantly more time, money, and other complications). 

The result? More and better-quality data gathered very, very quickly.

Day 3

On the third day, the quality control team at the factory started running the test treatments. I was there for oversight, but the goal was for them to run the experiments and sensory evaluation on their own, so they could continue collecting data for weeks after I left the facility.

Using a set of analysis ballots I created for them, they rated various characteristics on a formalized nine-point scale, including liking, sweetness, sourness, etc. 

And of course each evaluation must always be:

  • Randomized
  • Blind
  • Duplicated per panelist (at least)

Meanwhile they were also collecting samples of each treatment to send for chemical analysis in the lab.

Going forward

We planned for 8 weeks of data collection, with an initial analysis at the halfway point. Each week they sent me their sugar-bloom data, and in four weeks a clear pattern was starting to appear in the data, so I sent them a preliminary report.

Of course we continued the experiment as planned, and the final weeks of data confirmed the initial analysis. But in less than six weeks total, my client already had an action plan for eliminating the sugar-bloom defect. The rest was just icing on the proverbial cheesecake. 

According to the Director of Quality Assurance: “It blew us away, being delivered a root cause backed up by data at the midpoint of the project, along with multiple viable solutions.”

Frankly most food scientists don’t have the background to set up this kind of experiment revolving around sensory evaluation—but the results are well worth it.

More about experimental design in food science

To design and analyze this kind of complex experiment effectively, you have to consider what’s called multiple objective optimization.

In this case we have two main objectives: 

  1. Get rid of the defect
  2. Keep everything tasting the same for customers.

There may be several ways to get rid of the defect by adjusting certain ingredients—but if they change the flavor or texture of the cheesecake, they’re not very helpful.

To optimize for our needs, we look at the experimental region (using software of course, because it’s multiple dimensions deep at this point due to all the variables) to find the area within that region that solves both our objectives in the most optimal way.

This approach results in much less guesswork after the experiment is analyzed, thereby keeping the cost contained.

Problem solving with food science yields dividends

In food and beverage production, problems and defects will inevitably arise. This is especially true for functional foods where you also have variables like dosage and often bitterness. If you want to continue growing, you’ll have to solve those problems. How effectively you do that depends on where you apply your resources.

Whether you’re manufacturing cheesecake or chocolate, gummies, beverages, bakery items, etc—even minor defects can wind up costing a lot of money in the long run. Especially when you scale up production to meet your growing demand.

Though the problem for my cheesecake client was intermittent, and relatively minor from a quality standpoint—the appearance of sugar bloom could be confused by consumers and/or retailers as signs of mold. Not a good look.

Solving the problem completely and methodically will yield massive returns through the years to come, in terms of minimizing rejected product and keeping customers satisfied—all because of a small investment in forethought and food science.

When it comes to solving food science problems and saving money, more important than any niche knowledge-base is the ability to design an effective, efficient experiment based on the known variables and objectives—so you can run a thorough analysis based upon every last drop of important data.

Once you know exactly why something is happening, coming up with the right solution is often…a piece of cake.

Case Study: When Sweet Dreams Sour—A Cautionary Tale for Food Manufacturers

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I was contacted by a startup trying to develop a coconut-based dessert topping. They were celebrated for being clean-label and vegan—and so far people had been buying and enjoying their whipped topping. 

But there was one huge problem…

The product was fermenting as it sat on the refrigerated shelf. 

Turning into something like yogurt. 

They offered a 90-day “best by” date, but spoilage was happening before 30 days. The whipped topping was unstable at refrigeration temperature. 

Not great. 

When non-scientists analyze food tests

They’d put the product through a couple of shelf-life studies with different companies, trying to identify and solve the problem. But the product development team didn’t really understand what the reports were telling them. 

The head of product development thought the studies confirmed a 60- to 90-day shelf life. But in reality the ingredients list, manufacturing processes, and shelf-life studies clearly showed a different picture from their optimistic assessment.

They just didn’t know what to look for.

Lactobacillus, a class of bacteria found in fermented foods, wasn’t largely present in the product at the beginning. But after 30 days in refrigerated storage, the bacteria count was high enough to consider the product essentially a coconut yogurt. 

It’s very common and not dangerous —and lactobacillus tends to stifle the growth of other bad bacteria (which is one of the benefits of yogurt).

But not when you want sweet whipped topping. 🤢

This happened because any time you have a water-based mixture that isn’t pasteurized, it’s a potential breeding ground for bacteria that exist all around us.

And their particular recipe was a bacteria buffet, lacking a couple key elements that would reduce the “water activity” and let the product succeed on the refrigerated shelves.

In this case the concern wasn’t necessarily about pathogens, but rather how much the flavor degraded in a 30-day period. It went from sweet to sour and the package began bulging. 

Ick. Not what you want on your Sunday pancakes.

Science beats wishful thinking

Fortunately there were a number of easy fixes to their problem—and one of them is incredibly simple:

Market the stuff in the freezer aisle. Right next to the ice cream and Cool Whip.

But they didn’t want to do that because they had a vision of their product in the fridge alongside the pasteurized dairy…

So I suggested some other simple formulation fixes that would slow the bacteria growth and get them closer to the 60-90 day shelf life they wanted.

How do you slow bacteria growth without preservatives?

Reduce the water activity!

  • Add salt
  • Add sugar
  • Use less water per volume

Unfortunately by the time the company contacted me for help, their clean-food customer base was eroding and the brand’s reputation had already suffered major damage.

Had they brought on a food scientist earlier in the product development process—or had they been able to adjust their vision to fit the science—their brand story might have had a happier ending. 

Want to level-up your food or beverage business and solve problems before they happen?

Contact me for a complimentary 30-minute consultation

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Case Study: Gummy Recipe Scaling Problem & Months of Delivery Backlog Solved in One Day

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In autumn 2020, I consulted for a large white-label gummy manufacturer in California. They had multiple gummy products and were attempting to scale to meet enormous growth in their market. Which was due in no small way to the pandemic.

Sales were booming but they couldn’t scale up to meet the demand—something in their process was causing the agar to break down and fail to gel. 

They faced a growing backlog of deliverables. Every merchant’s nightmare. They were losing money every day and damaging their wholesale relationships.

The company’s president told me if they didn’t solve the problem soon they might go under. 

Even with an experienced VP of Ops and Head of R&D on the team, they couldn’t resolve their agar-gummy scaling problem. Because neither of these top-notch business executives had any expertise in the food science that goes into large-scale food manufacturing.

During our first (and only) consulting meeting, I explained some fundamental food science relevant to their gummy issues and suggested several fixes. 

3 things that affect agar gelling for gummies:

  • Temperature
  • pH
  • Boil length

Their gummies contained a fruit puree that was very tart (acidic), which they were adding to the hot gummy mix. The higher temperature and lower pH contributed to the agar degradation and failure to gel.

The other problem they were having was the bigger batches were too watery.

In general, any time you’re scaling a water-based confectionery recipe, you must reduce the water content because at bigger batches, a smaller percentage of water evaporates during the cooking process.

To compensate for the extra water, they boiled their mixture for over 3 hours to get the right brix to proceed to the next step.

Problem with that was, the extra boil time degraded the agar and resulted in a gooey gummy mess.

I suggested a few changes in their process, and even though the science was unfamiliar to them, they carefully followed my advice and solved their gummy scaling issue in less than a day. 

Whew. 😅


Imagine how much money could have been made instead of lost…if only they’d consulted a food science expert prior to scaling up…

Want to level-up your food or beverage business and solve problems before they happen?

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Case Study: Brewery’s key product launch saved by improved formulation strategy

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In the summer of 2021, I consulted for a domestic craft brewery trying to launch a new line of hard seltzers. Their initial product offering of 3 flavors took almost 2 years to develop. 

That’s approximately 4x longer than it should have taken. 😳

Then their launch fell flat. It failed to generate the sales and attention they wanted. Plus their disappointed distributor now demanded three additional flavors by the following spring—just 6 months away.

Concerned they’d miss this window of opportunity to grow sales in the spring, the brewery’s president contacted me for help.

After meeting with the team, I recognized that despite their professionalism, this team of beer artists didn’t understand the formulation process required to develop a hard seltzer product.

For example, alcohol on its own has substantial bitterness, which is usually balanced by other flavors. So their hard seltzer came out bitter and they weren’t sure how to fix it.

  • Bitterness suppression – A new concept to these lovers of bitter hops. They’re used to an art form measured in bitterness units and building big flavors.
  • Optimized and stable – Elements like sweet and sour balance need to match the flavor profile—and the drink can’t change or continue fermenting inside the can.
  • Batch consistency – They struggled to find a fermentation process that would deliver clean-flavored, consistent results, without the nutrients naturally present in barley malt. 
  • Sensory evaluation – When targeting an entirely new customer base, it’s important to get feedback from relevant sources.  

The team was failing. But it wasn’t really their fault. They’d been asked to do a job outside the scope of their training and skillsets. They weren’t food scientists and had no formulation experience outside the artistic realm of craft beer. 

And they were finding out the hard way that beer geeks and hard seltzer lovers don’t always overlap in their preferences.

But they were smart, hard working people. They just needed education and clear direction. So I delivered a comprehensive step-by-step plan to help them create 3 new flavors within 6 months.

  1. Brainstorm flavors and concepts
  2. Consider constraints like ABV, calorie count, etc
  3. Optimize their base fermentation process to solve instability and inconsistency
  4. Balance sweet, sour, and bitter with overall flavor profile, according to market expectations
  5. Bottle and test for quality and shelf stability

I also counseled them to run consumer sensory studies—which deliver an incredibly valuable set of human information, but isn’t always feasible due to constraints of budget and imagination.
All this to say: when stepping into unfamiliar territory in food development, it helps to have a food scientist on hand early in the process to help you figure out what you don’t know before you send an unsatisfactory product to market and disappoint your customers and vendors.

Want to level-up your food or beverage business and solve problems before they happen?

Contact me for a complimentary 30-minute consultation

Start Here

How To Fix Bitterness in Cannabis Edibles

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Thanks to the slow but steady crawl toward legalization, more and more people are turning to cannabis as medicine or for recreation. 

Led by gummies, cannabis edibles have quickly gobbled up a massive share of the $5 billion cannabis market—with a year-over-year sales growth of more than 20% in 2021—and total edibles sales are projected to reach $8 billion by 2025.

The industry is getting crowded but it’s still a goldrush. And it’s the perfect time for ambitious edibles producers to stake their claim with high-quality, standout cannabis products.

But there’s one big problem that every edibles maker must contend with: cannabis extracts are inherently bitter.

Ricardo Baca, former Editor in Chief of The Cannabist, said “One hundred percent of the edibles market is focused on removing that recognizable scent and flavor of the cannabis plant and replacing it with something that’s more aesthetically familiar.”

In fact, an entirely new industry has emerged within the $1.4 billion cannabis edibles market—whose sole purpose is overcoming the bitter and potentially off-putting flavors of marijuana. 

So what can you do if your edibles come out too bitter?

There are a few different directions to take when it comes to fixing bitterness in edibles—but first let’s take a look at the science of bitterness and flavor. 

How bitterness works

As we learned in school, bitterness is one of the five taste sensations (along with sweet, sour, salty, and umami) that are perceptible by the tongue—and one that is particularly useful for keeping us alive.

Many toxic plants and substances share similarities in molecular structures. So the ability to detect bitterness evolved as a “last chance” defense mechanism (once the toxin is already in your mouth!) causing an unpleasant experience—hopefully not too late.

Research has found that human taste receptors type 2 (T2Rs) and G-proteins like gustducin are responsible for our ability to taste bitter compounds. When you consume something bitter—let’s say quinine from the tonic in your G&T—the quinine compound binds to G-protein-coupled receptors like gustducin, which release several enzymes the taste cell uses to transmit the response via neurons to produce the cognitive experience of bitter.

Scientifically, bitter substances are rated relative to quinine (with a reference index of 1), ranging to the most bitter natural substance (gentian root) which has an index value of 5 million.

Okay so we know how bitterness works—but what can you do about bitterness in marijuana edibles?

Managing bitterness in cannabis edibles

Most cannabinoid extracts are intensely bitter, earthy, and often difficult to work with. When the raw product has such a dramatic impact on flavor, creating a formula for an infused product that tastes good and also delivers the expected amount of THC or CBD can require a bit of finesse and scientific precision. 

For example, when it comes to emulsified cannabinoid products, the carrier oils and preservatives can actually intensify the bitterness. During the process of emulsification, when the cannabinoid particles are broken down into their smallest size, the increased surface area means more likelihood of transferring bitter flavors to the taste receptors. 

Some people are proponents of keeping the herbaceous, bitter flavor of cannabis products—to remind people that what they’re consuming is medicine and not candy, hoping to limit accidental ingestion or overindulgence.

For those who don’t follow that school of thought, there are 3 main ways to deal with the inherent bitterness of cannabis:

  • Incorporate the flavor
  • Mask the flavor
  • Use a lower concentration

Incorporating bitterness flavor in edibles

The cheapest approach to bitterness in cannabis edibles starts with accepting the naturally bitter flavor of cannabis and working with it. 

Adding other familiar flavors that are also bitter—such as cocoa, coffee, peppermint, and hops—can trick the brain into thinking, “Even though this tastes bitter, it’s a bitter flavor I enjoy.”

One method that any chef could tell you is taking advantage of the Maillard reaction (if it makes sense for your flavor profile). The browning of sugars and proteins adds a bitterness and aromatic complexity that we find pleasant and helps incorporate other bitter tastes for an overall positive flavor experience.

Bitterness can also be balanced by adding natural sweeteners—but that may not do much for the aftertaste, and can affect your calorie count and labeling. The bitter effect can also be impacted by sour ingredients like lemon juice or citric acid—but again that changes the whole flavor profile and limits your options.

Many consumers acknowledge that bitterness in cannabis edibles is just part of the experience; a small price to pay for the intended effect, much like alcohol or caffeine. 

But trust a wizened old food scientist and highly decorated flavor maven: it doesn’t have to be that way.

Bitterness masking in edibles

Masking flavors is a relatively low-tech approach that is widely used in the edibles industry. The ultimate goal is to eliminate the natural bitterness of the plant extract by adding ingredients that cover up or block bitterness receptors on the tongue. 

One such technique is called microencapsulation, where a hollow sugar molecule (cyclodextrin) attracts and contains the smaller cannabinoid molecules, and carries them past the tongue’s bitterness receptors into the stomach where the sugar dissolves and releases the THC or CBD into the bloodstream.

There are plenty of other all-natural food science compounds and ingredients for masking bitterness (including plant-based non-nutritive sweeteners, seaweed extracts, and fruit-derived essential oils) but we’ll get to that.

Using lower concentration of cannabis extract per volume

One simple way to manage bitterness is to make a bigger edible per dose. Minor adjustments in a batch’s concentration per volume can perceptibly reduce the bitterness in each edible. 

Obviously this isn’t always feasible for existing cannabis products needing a flavor tune-up—it could impact packaging, labeling, regulatory registration, etc.

Plus at scale, even slight adjustments in recipe volume can affect your product costs in a big way. 

Beyond balance: the future of the edibles industry

For many consumers who are new to cannabis—especially those in the “Baby Boomer” generation—edibles are the preferred method for dosing. 

So this problem of bitterness in edibles has to be solved.

There are plenty of bitterness masking ingredients available—but not all of them work well for cannabis; and if they do, maybe only partially. 

Finding the best one for your edibles recipe could mean expensive rounds of prototyping—and even then, with all the options available, how do you know you aren’t missing out on something that works even better?

As food scientists and chemistry nerds, we at Elevated Edibles are always searching for more effective ways to achieve the holy grail of bitterness masking for cannabis edibles. 

We’ve put in countless lab hours—so you don’t have to—scientifically testing the myriad individual and combined ingredients available on the bitterness-masking market…and we’ve come up with a somewhat remarkable solution that’s all-natural, highly effective, and unique in the industry.

Making Edibles More Edible: How Hiring a Mad Scientist Makes Mad Money

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TL;DR—

✅   Listen to your customers

✅   Invest in food science expertise

✅   Higher quality means competitive edge

✅   Food science helps eliminate bad flavors, aftertastes, and textures

✅   How to scale quality and meet customer demand

✅   3 case studies about profiting from food science

“Every time I taste a chocolate bar, gummy, or other cannabis edible, the flavor ranges from disappointing to disgusting.”

Eight years ago the person who said that to me became my first edibles consulting client. At the time he and his company were among the only ones to recognize the wide-open opportunity to rise to the top of the market with better-tasting edibles.

And the funny thing is, his statement still holds mostly true.

The cannabis edibles market is flooded with inferior quality products made with crude cannabis infusions—not much better than what we all used to make in college. 

And even when the dosage is precise, the edible itself isn’t great. Chocolates are often waxy. Gummies can be bitter or astringent. Beverages break down and separate. And more often than not, the predominant flavor of any edible is vegetal weed.

Well people are getting tired of it—just read any edibles thread on Grasscity, Weedable, or Reddit. 

Which means there’s ample opportunity in almost every market to rise above the chaff and offer truly better cannabis edibles to customers who are longing for products and brands worth being loyal to.

Customers want better-tasting edibles

Anyone in product development knows the power of marketing and branding. If you pour enough money into messaging and choice architecture, even inferior products can carve out a significant market share.

But as a cannabis edibles entrepreneur, you also must know—who controls the taste controls the galaxy. Or the market, that is.

So why haven’t big edibles companies stepped up their quality and taste to seize the market?

Well some have in recent years…but overall—the fact is they haven’t had to.

It’s a law of averages. If the only thing widely available is marginal-quality cannabis-infused products—that’s what people will buy. And once they’re raking it in, well-funded brands will turn to marketing instead of product development.

But if you want to compete with big cannabis edibles brands, getting into a price war isn’t going to go well. As a small business or startup, your best weapon is to offer higher quality products that taste so good people can’t get enough. 

So how do you make better-tasting cannabis edibles to enchant the market?

The answer is deceptively simple—you need to prioritize and invest in food science.

Food scientists and food technologists can help you scale quality of flavor, texture, and dosage precision to deliver unrivaled cannabis edibles, build brand loyalty, and captivate the market share you deserve.

What is food science for cannabis edibles?

Food science encompasses a broad scope of disciplines. Anything from chemical analysis to scaling for national markets.

Food scientists come in all shapes and sizes of expertise. Each company and product requires different levels of specialization, so there’s no way to generalize.

Cannabis food science is a somewhat specialized niche, and most cannabis entrepreneurs can’t spring the $250k salary for an in-house food scientist—which means your best bet is to outsource certain project elements to a food science consultant with experience in cannabis edibles.

Which often works out better because sometimes big problems can be solved with just one simple session of applied science (see case studies below).

Depending on your size and scope, you’ll want someone with different levels of expertise in each of the three main disciplines of food science. Here’s how those disciplines look in real-world circumstances…

3 food-science case studies:

  • Food Formulation
  • Functional Foods
  • Food Processing Technology

What is food formulation?

Food formulation is the overall strategy of creating marketable food. It’s a precise, multi-pronged process that takes a food idea from concept to prototype to finalized formula. Guided by the limitations of manufacturing, budget, etc.

This is a common service for food science consultants like me. And starting from scratch with an idea often ensures the best results. That’s because we’re able to look ahead together and discover problems before we get to them at scale.

Problems at scale are always more expensive.

Case Study: How science saved a brewery

What does functional foods mean?

The branch of food science known as Functional Foods revolves around edible products delivering specific health benefits or effects by way of special ingredients or processes (e.g. CBD oils, nutritional supplements, or THC edibles). 

Formulation can be much more complex for such products. Especially where dosage needs to be precise.

Any time precision and/or consistency is on the line—especially for products like cannabis edibles that rightfully earn extra scrutiny—science is your best tool for developing and scaling to meet market demand.

Case Study: Science helps scale gummy edibles fast

How does food-processing technology make better edibles?

Food processing technology incorporates a foundation of science to design and improve food-production processes—including preservation, quality assurance, and research & development.

It’s a branch of food science that weighs manufacturing elements and advanced production methods as well as microbial analysis for things like shelf-life and safety.

Food-processing technology is an ever-expanding discipline that also pushes the envelope on applications like edible 3D printing, lab-grown meat cuts, and genetically modified produce that can grow in space.

Case Study: Accidental yogurt and the importance of lab testing

Investing in food science yields big returns

It’s not just error prevention that saves you money in science-based cannabis edibles production.

What matters most in market success is delivering on the promises you make to potential customers.

One of your promises is “edible,” yes?

Food scientists can help identify what’s causing bad flavors and textures in cannabis edibles—and show you how to eliminate, balance, or mask them. Which means they taste better—which means people return for more, instead of risking it on something new that might taste terrible.

Scientific consistency also helps you deliver on your promises of quality, dosage, and effect—which means customers will trust your product and tell their friends. And you’ll be able to scale to meet the growing demand.

That’s how to capture and maintain a profitable market share with chef-quality, science-grade cannabis edibles.

Product Formulation Optimization #3

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The Troublesome Yet Terrific Tortilla (Part 3)

In part 3 of our look at the troublesome yet terrific tortilla, following as it does from a general description of the tortilla quandary in part 1, and some specific details regarding the tortilla challenges anticipated in part 2, finally I’ll begin to explain how I approached the task of optimizing the formulation, or in simple terms, how I made the very best tortilla.

What Is “Best?”

As mentioned previously, I’ve already defined that I am speaking of wheat-flour-based tortillas; so my goal in optimizing a tortilla formulation is to produce the wheat-flour-based tortilla with the best organoleptic characteristics. It’s worth taking a moment to consider what I mean by “best.” In this case, I am considering only my own preferences, whether I’m talking about aroma, overall flavor, mouthfeel, or even appearance. However, if I were developing this tortilla for a regional restaurant chain, it would make sense to do consumer evaluation that includes a sample of the regular customers of that chain, and perhaps also consumers that the chain is trying to convert to customers. My specific preferences, for example, may or may not overlap well with those of the restaurant customers. But luckily, since the tortillas in question are for me, I can more simply consider my own preferences.

All Wheat-Flour Tortillas Are Not Created Equal.

Also, it is important for me to clarify that I want a tortilla that tastes great when fresh. I’m not at all concerned about storing the finished product on the shelf, or in the fridge or freezer. I want a tortilla that I can griddle now, eat, enjoy thoroughly, and then move on. If I were developing a tortilla for a grocery chain, I would have to reconsider this approach, because in that case the end consumer has little chance of buying the tortillas fresh and hot. They will need to be reheated out of necessity, and they will likely need to be able to remain free of mold for at least a week on the shelves, and perhaps longer. Such a tortilla would have characteristics that are dramatically different from the type I want to eat for my own enjoyment.

Are there Additional Constraints?

There are plenty of other details to consider. Do I want to work with ingredients available at the local grocery? Am I interested milling grain into flour? Does the tortilla need to be vegetarian? What types of equipment are available for processing and cooking the tortillas? And speaking of production constraints, while I’m willing to deal with dough that is a bit sticky or stiff and difficult to roll out in order to achieve a better tortilla, there is a limit to my patience. I don’t want to make my life 50% more difficult just to squeak in an extra 1% increase in improved mouthfeel. So, as I’m rating the various sensory characteristics of each tortilla, I can also consider rating things like dough stickiness, dough toughness, and perhaps overall workability.

Pulling Everything Together.

I’ve said that I want to optimize the formulation for a wheat-flour-based tortilla that is best according to my own preferences. I want to be able to make it at home with a 4’x4′ maple butcher block serving as the work surface, a wooden rolling pin, a 6-qt stand mixer, an induction range, a cast-iron skillet, and a spatula. I would also generally like to use ingredients that are readily available (e.g., King Arthur AP wheat flour, sea salt, and filtered tap water), but I’m willing to put in a little extra work to improve the quality of the added fat.

Ingredients.

For the fat in the tortillas, I’ll render my own lard from the backfat of locally raised hogs. As part of the rendering process, I’ll use a temperature high enough to brown the cracklings once they are void of fat, which adds additional roasted complexity to the lard’s flavor profile. At the end of the rendering process, I’ll also add some smoked bacon to give the lard a subtle smoky note. I will not be using plant-based oils in this recipe, as I know from experience that they have bland or off flavors in tortillas. I will also not be using baking powder. As mentioned in part 2, baking powder is quite a common ingredient in modern tortillas, but I would prefer to depend upon steam–from the added water–to leaven and lighten the texture of the tortillas. In my experience, the mouthfeel of the end product is better than when baking powder is used. So now I’ve clearly defined the constraints for this project. What’s next?

Freshly griddled wheat-flour tortillas made with freshly rendered pork lard, filtered water, and sea salt

A Product Optimization Experiment.

We now have to take our known constraints and design an experiment that will allow us to optimize the tortilla formulation. How should we proceed? One variable at a time? Often seen as the acronym OVAT, this is thought by most non-scientists to describe how experiments are run according to the scientific method. Actually, even some scientists believe this. But here’s the thing, it’s dead wrong. Even in a relatively simple food like our tortillas with only four ingredients (i.e., flour, water, lard, salt), changing the amount of one variable at a time, let’s say the flour, while holding all else constant, is likely to be, at best, an incredibly inefficient way to determine what the optimal tortilla recipe is, and at worst, will never find it at all. In short, OVAT has significant disadvantages. Arguably, the most important disadvantage is that important “interactions” usually exist in foods, and will be missed with the OVAT approach.

Interactions!

In this project, if we simplify for a moment to say that our only goal is to improve the flavor of the tortilla on a scale from 1-10, then any positive main effect would be one related to any of the individual ingredients that increases quality. For example, maybe more lard increases quality on average. That’s lard’s main effect. But what happens when water and lard are both present? Does water, in addition to having its own main effect on quality also impact the degree to which lard has a positive impact? If so, then that would be an interaction effect. It might be the case that with smaller amounts of water, lard is hugely positive in its impact, but with more water it makes a much smaller positive difference. It is immediately clear why interactions can cause huge problems with the OVAT approach; because if you only change one variable/ingredient at a time, you can’t determine if interactions exist. And guess what? Interactions almost always exist to some degree, and sometimes they are hugely influential. So what can we do about this?

Optimal Design of Experiments.

When the OVAT approach can’t be trusted to work, which is usually, instead we can rely on the considerable theory in the field of statistics that supports what is called “design of experiments,” along with modern computers and software, to produce an optimal experimental design. Such a design is able to help determine what the optimal formulation would be of a tortilla, again from the flavor quality standpoint defined above, but more than that, such a design even allows the experienced product development expert to determine the optimal formulation while considering several characteristics at the same time. This is sometimes called multiple objective optimization. How it does this is easier to show with an example than to explain in prose, so we’ll take a look at a tortilla-development optimal design in the final part of this series (part 4).

–Alan McClure

Product Formulation Optimization #2

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The Troublesome Yet Terrific Tortilla (Part 2)

Continuing on with the product formulation optimization theme, using tortilla formulation specifically as an example, we dig in further. As a reminder, tortilla formulation is more complicated than it may at first appear. As I wrote previously:

“From the standpoint of the uninitiated, a tortilla seems a simple beast. As a plain product on its own there are no fillings or inclusions, no added flavors, swirls of color, or fancy shapes. Even the plastic bags in which they’re sold ten at a time are nothing special. But the phrase “deceptively simple” does exist for a reason. And one could reasonably argue that it was coined as a product formulation expert was doing some deep thinking about the common, yet commonly unimpressive, tortilla.”

In this recent post I also spoke about the two different types of tortillas (corn and wheat flour), and noted some of the complexities of both of them including nixtamalization in the case of corn tortillas, and the presence of gluten and necessary added fat in the case of the wheat flour tortillas. Clearly, when done well, both types of tortillas are fantastic, but my family was handed down a wheat flour tortilla tradition from my Mexican great grandmother Guadalupe Otila Macias, and since I was a wee child I’ve been truly mesmerized by this type.

Watching my grandmother mix and knead them by hand, roll them out with a flick or two of the wrist, and then bake them on top of a cast-iron griddle on the stove–the incredible smell–and then passing one steaming and blistered with flavor from hand to hand with nearly burnt fingertips, taking bites and smiling uncontrollably. These are some of the most powerful memories of my childhood. Why would I ever want to change a single detail in my original family recipe?

As I mentioned previously, wheat flour tortillas can be tricky because the gluten proteins in wheat (i.e., glutenin and gliadin) when hydrated, help to create a stretchy and springy dough that is notoriously hard to roll out. To produce a less tough and easier to roll tortilla, people traditionally added some amount of fat to the dough in the form of freshly rendered pork lard. The added lard reduces the overall gluten development, and the tortillas become more aromatic and the mouthfeel more tender and less chewy. And when everything is just right, the tortillas puff magically like perfect little pillows, making them even lighter in texture. But what about when everything isn’t just right?

tortillas freshly cooked
Freshly griddled wheat-flour tortillas made with freshly rendered pork lard, filtered water, and sea salt

The Baking Powder Bandage

The problem is that getting the ratio of ingredients just right can be very tricky. If it is even a bit off, or the griddle temperature is not optimal, or the tortilla maker is just not paying the right amount of attention, the tortillas can end up dense and unpleasant. The solution to this problem used by most is an addition of baking powder. It allows the tortilla maker a bit more flexibility in all of the important conditions. However, the texture of a baking-powder-risen tortilla is not quite the same as one without, and it has been written more than once by tortilla aficionados that the baking powder version is simply not as good.

The Vegetable Oil Blunder

Another problem is that as refined plant-based vegetable oils have become much cheaper, and good fatback from which to make lard has become less readily available in the marketplace, recipes have begun to call for either liquid oil or hydrogenated oil, also called shortening. These oil-based tortillas simply aren’t capable of tasting as good as those made from the roasted and rendered fat of flavorful hogs.

So, the modern homemade wheat-flour tortilla, which itself is scarce compared to the store-bought versions with little personality, is itself a shadow of its former glorious self. But if these changes to the modern tortilla have led to a poverty of quality, what is to be done about it? How can we possibly attempt to recreate a product formulation that most of us have never tasted?

I’ll explain how I approached this challenge in an effort to do just that. Stay tuned for más detalles in Part 3.

–Alan McClure

Product Formulation Optimization #1

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The Troublesome Yet Terrific Tortilla (Part 1)

From the standpoint of the uninitiated, a tortilla seems a simple beast. As a plain product on its own there are no fillings or inclusions, no added flavors, swirls of color, or fancy shapes. Even the plastic bags in which they’re sold ten at a time are nothing special. But the phrase “deceptively simple” does exist for a reason. And one could reasonably argue that it was coined as a product formulation expert was doing some deep thinking about the common, yet commonly unimpressive, tortilla.

So where should we start to understand the product formulation challenge better? It’s often the case that the very best examples of foods are traditional ones. And certainly where tortillas are concerned, traditional versions are far better than the most familiar brands at the local grocer. For those who have had incredible tortillas, the kind that are calling out to be eaten, simply, steaming hot from the Mexican comal, fingers burning, we know this in our gut. But if one wants this beautiful experience far away from a Mexican market or abuela, is it even possible?

What is a tortilla anyway?

First, let’s simplify the issue. Tortillas come in two main types: corn- and wheat-flour-based. Corn tortillas are traditionally made from alkali-treated heirloom corn, called “nixtamal,” a Nahuatl term borrowed from the Aztec. This process, often referred to as nixtamalization, uses a relatively dilute solution of culinary lime, aka calcium hydroxide, in water to catalyze hydrolysis and conversion of various compounds in the corn kernels’ hull. This process makes the corn easier to digest, more nutritious, less likely to contain harmful mycotoxins, and most people would claim, myself included, more delicious. In fact, the flavor is so good, that traditional corn tortillas require nothing more than ground nixtamal, water, and bit of salt, to create a fabulous flat food fit for an Aztec king. But, as previously mentioned…

Corn is not the only way…

In northern Mexico and Texas, which also used to be part of Mexico, where wheat flour was more readily available, tortillas made from this grain were more common. And because the proteins in wheat, when hydrated, help to create a stretchy and springy dough that is notoriously hard to roll out, people added some amount of fat to the dough in the form of freshly rendered pork lard. The lard reduced the overall gluten development, making the thin disks of dough easier to roll out, and moreover, made the tortillas more aromatic and the mouthfeel more tender than chewy. And when the proportions of flour:water:lard are just right, the tortillas puff magically, making them lighter and more tender in texture, and giving the surface of the tortilla a deliciously mottled appearance, due to light charring of the steam-puffed pockets on the surface, thereby creating even more flavor–Maillard reaction pathways y’all.

tortillas freshly cooked
Freshly griddled wheat-flour tortillas made with freshly rendered pork lard, filtered water, and sea salt

Now, I’m a sucker for both types of tortilla, and I’ve made countless batches of both, nixtamalizing my own corn, experimenting with many of the countless heirloom Mexican varieties, and for the wheat tortillas, rendering my own lard, getting the roasted, almost smoky pork flavor just right. But I have to admit that having grown up with wheat flour tortillas in my family, a cultural contribution of my Mexican maternal great-grandmother, Guadalupe Otila Macias, who emigrated to Texas as a young girl, I have spent considerably more time thinking about, making, and certainly eating wonderful wheat flour tortillas. And I can assure you that even with four ingredients, they are tricky to perfect, or more technically, to optimize the product formulation.

But I’ll tell you what; recently I did just that. Stay tuned for más detalles in Part 2.

–Alan McClure

Good, Better, Best?

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Sage advice from the product developer:

How good is good enough? Is it just fine to be as good as the competition, or does a product always need to be even better to compete? And what if better isn’t even good enough? Developing award-winning products that utterly destroy the competition means aiming for the best possible version of a product. With all of the choice in the marketplace these days, it’s the only reasonable approach to ensure sales superiority and passion for the product on the part of consumers, tastemakers, and influencers. But how does one achieve the very best?

The little-known hard truth is that creativity, inspiration, passion and dedication simply aren’t enough. Every single product has an infinite number of possible iterations. Tweaking one ingredient at a time based on experience may give you a better product than the one before, but is it actually the very best? Without following well constructed optimally designed product development experiments, the answer is almost certainly “No.” Luckily for us, such experiments make the product development process more precise and more efficient, saving time and money while producing not just a better product, but the very best!

-Alan McClure

Microbes May Make Mouths Merry

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Sometime back I came across an article at Science Daily that got me thinking about the impact of our little microbial friends on the flavor of our favorite foods and beverages. The authors of the study noted that certain normally tasteless compounds, when exposed to microbes that are naturally present in the mouth and/or throat, are transformed into aromatic flavor compounds, in some cases even giving off the characteristic odor of a particular food in the aftertaste.

Thinking about the variety of foods and beverages that I’ve tasted over my life, some with magnificent, long-lasting finishes, and others that seem to spiral so quickly to an unsatisfying demise, it makes me wonder to what extent the microbes in my mouth had any say in the matter. There are countless implications to all of this, including whether it is possible to optimize conversion by the microbes by altering the flavorless reactant concentration, but also potentially by altering environmental conditions in the mouth (e.g., pH, calcium or sodium ion concentration, amount of saliva, etc.).

That’s lots of food for thought, so to speak, and speaking of thought, who knows, maybe they’ll find out that there are microbes that change the way we think as well.

-Alan McClure

The Chemistry of Chocolate

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Chocolate has perhaps the most complex flavor of any food in the world. With the running count now numbering at least 40,000 compounds found in cacao/cocoa beans, this means that even the simply fermented “cocoa bean comprises more detectable and resolvable analytes than any other processed food thus investigated (Milev et al, Food Research International, 2014).”  This is undoubtedly part of the reason that scientists struggle to tell us exactly which of the thousands of compounds give chocolate its magnificent, delectable and unmistakable flavor. It is perhaps most likely that this quintessential chocolate aroma is due to a combination of the many chemicals produced during roasting through various Maillard reaction pathways, but it may also potentially be due to an as yet undiscovered compound present at a very low concentration, yet still perceptible due to its very low odor threshold. And so it is at the start of the 21st century, as we find ourselves at the dawn of space tourism, regularly cloning plants and animals, and building supercomputers smaller than wristwatches, that we still can’t fully explain why chocolate is so gosh darn chocolaty.

However, even though there is so much we still don’t understand about chocolate, we do know that many people, if asked to choose between their favorite chocolate and any other beloved food, would not hesitate to choose what Carolus Linnaeus regarded as “food of the gods” (i.e., Theobroma cacao), and this despite the fact that cacao cotyledons just off the tree taste incredibly bitter and astringent, and not chocolaty in the least. How does such a transformation from detestable to exceptional occur?

It’s in the processing, including fermentation, drying, roasting, refining, and conching.  More specifically, it is our control over and optimization of the chemical-based flavor changes during chocolate processing that eventually reveal to us a flavor of beauty! And who am I to argue with anyone who believes that this achievement is equally as impressive as Jeff Bezos strapped into a flaming phallic vessel shooting for the stars.

-Alan McClure