Author: itsflavours

Natural Hop Flavours For Beer – How to Cut Your Hop Costs.

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Natural hop flavours made by craft brewers

If you’re like us and like your beers to pack a punch of hoppy flavour, you’ll need to be trying our new natural hop flavours.

How do Natural Flavours work In Beer?

Hops come in all shapes and sizes these days, with the increasing new varieties and flavour styles from all over the world influencing the final flavour of the beer. There has simply never been a more exciting time to be experimenting with the flavour of beer.
Inspired by our love of beer, we crafted a range of flavours to help boost the tastiness and aroma of beer using our favourite hops. The benefits are huge with flavours, not only do they help with flavour and aroma, but can also massively help with costs.

Struggling With the Cost of Hops?

As anyone in the beer world will know, hops aren’t cheap. With the increasing demand for new hops in beers, sometimes the costs can be tough. Natural Hop Flavours are added downstream in the brewing process to help standardise the beer bitterness, boost the hoppiness, and all in a much more cost-efficient way. Using fewer hops in the brew kettle for bitterness and in the cask for aroma, means that beer losses can be hugely reduced.
Brewers in the craft sector especially are focusing on dry hopping to help infuse more hoppy flavour and aroma into the beer. This technique of adding the hops late into the brewing process often encourages a more aromatic flavour to the hops to help increase the flavour and bitterness. Natural Hop Flavours could then be added after this process to help boost the hop taste.

Brewery Tested Hop Flavours

Our natural hop flavours have been crafted through the love of great tasting beer. We have our very own microbrewery at I.T.S. and our flavours have been tested through our brews to ensure the best possible flavour. Our team has over 20 years of brewing experience, paired with our countless years in flavours, you’d be hard pushed to find hop flavours better fitted.

Don’t Believe The Hype? Give Them a Try

Get in touch today and request some samples of our hop flavour range to try out in your brewery.
Citra Style Hop – NATLQ13971
Cascade Style Hop – NATLQ13972
Chinook Style Hop – NATLQ13973
Our team are also happy to guide you through the best methods and techniques of applying the hop flavours to your brewing process. So whatever you’re after, just drop us a line.

Judging at World Dairy Innovation Awards

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A trusted voice in the dairy industry

We are proud to announce that our very own Briony Rideout has been selected as a judge for the World Dairy Innovation Awards 2022. 

The World Dairy Innovation Awards, in association with Zenith Global World Dairy Congress, are a celebration of innovation and excellence across every category of the international dairy industry.

Now in their 16th year, these awards are a fantastic way for brands to enhance the promotion of their dairy brand and to ensure it gains global recognition.

Briony will be joining a panel that includes recognised and reputable names from across the global dairy industry and between them, they will be responsible for deciding the winners of the World Dairy Innovation Awards, taking place in June 2022.

There are 21 trophies to be won in total, and being shortlisted provides a hallmark of success that will prevail long after the awards draw to a close. To find out more information, including how to enter, click here.

A little bit about Briony

With a background in food science and product development, Briony started her journey at Leeds University where she graduated with a BSC in Food Science and Nutrition (industrial) in 2017. She now works at I.T.S. an independent UK flavour house. Briony looks after the growing portfolio of dairy customers, working closely with both large national dairies and exciting start-up brands.

She works across a wide range of applications helping to improve the taste in both dairy and dairy alternative products. Briony also manages I.T.S.’ UHT pilot facility to stress test flavourings and run customer trials.

When she’s not busy in the lab, she’s out exploring the dairy market for all the latest trends and new product releases. Outside of work Briony enjoys spending time in the kitchen baking celebratory cakes, catching up with family and friends, exploring new places and getting lost in a good book.

Looking to perfect your flavours in a dairy or dairy alternative product? Get in touch to see how Briony can help. 

I.T.S. Brewing Tasty Beer With New Microbrewery

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The world’s tastiest microbrewery?

We have just installed a new microbrewery on-site at our Newbury facility. We love playing around with flavours and beer, so it was a no-brainer to get a brewery up and running.
This new equipment allows us to stress test our flavours on all types of beer that we brew up. Not to mention, it’s great for a Friday afternoon and staff parties.

Using flavours in the brewing process

Flavours have so many advantages to making life easier and cheaper in the brewing process. From adding juicy and citrus flavours to enhance beers, to deep chocolate and coffee notes for depth in dark beers. You can also totally transform the flavour of a beer with a brave flavour not tried in beer before.
Flavourings allow brewers to lower costs and enhance flavour with a simple drop of natural flavouring.

A flavour house owned and run by brewers

Mike Bagshaw explains “I’ve been brewing at home for over 20 years, and have always played around with flavourings. I make a mean bitter orange wheat beer, which always goes down well with my friends.”
“It got to a point where we saw so many breweries starting to use flavours that we had to take it to the next level. We wanted a straightforward flavour offering for brewers to use. We now have a brilliant range of flavours that work perfectly in many styles of beer.”

Request flavour samples to give it a go

Interested in flavours for your brewery, or fancy coming in to try out some flavours? Get in touch for a chat.

Flavour Trends 2022

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Here are the flavours you need to be trying in 2022.

Welcome to our Flavour Trend overview for 2022 and beyond. We’ve made your life easier and done the hard work for you.

Are you tired of overcomplicated and bloated flavour trend reports that say so much, but leave you a little uninspired?

We’ve drowned out the noise and kept things simple with 6 key flavour trends to take note of this year.  

Flavour Trend 1 ) Exotic Flavours

Everyone loves an exotic holiday that is filled with exotic fruits and refreshing cocktails. There is no reason why these flavours can’t be enjoyed all year round and at home.
In 2022 consumers will be reaching for bright and refreshing flavours to get them excited. “Exotic” has risen by over 10% in social media discussions over the past year, proving the desire for something a little more exotic.
Take consumers on a flavour adventure.
Get brave with: Mangosteen, Horned Melon, Dragon Fruit

Request a flavouring sample

Flavour Trend 2 ) Foraging Flavours

The focus on sustainability is driving improvements in all areas of food and drink. A growing focus is on local and seasonal produce and ingredients.
This is driving change in flavour, with a focus on flavours that can be associated with foraging and found out in the wild.
“Wild Food” has grown by 7.78% in social discussion in 2021. Make sure you focus on natural and wild flavours. A popular flavour already cutting through is “wild strawberry”.
Don’t be afraid to get a little wild with flavour.
Get brave with: Mulberry, Cloudberry, Elderberry

Request a flavouring sample

Flavour Trend 3 ) Citrus Flavours

Sound familiar? Probably because we highlight citrus flavours pretty much every year. You love it, we love it, just about everyone loves it.
Just when you think you’ve conquered every citrus flavour combo, something new comes along. A flavour profile that works perfectly in pretty much all applications.
We’re looking at our friends in bakery to really get interesting this year. Sure, bakers do lemon flavours well, but there’s so much out there for them to explore.
Just look over at the beverage sector for inspiration, but more on that later…
Get brave with: Calamansi, Dekopon, Yuzu Koshō

Request a flavouring sample

Flavour Trend 4 ) Mood Flavours

Are you getting your customers in the mood? Mood boosting food and drink is big business in 2022. Food and drink products are blending into the wellbeing market to help bring functional ingredients and flavours.
Energising, sleep improvement, relaxation are all key moods found in food and drinks. Find ingredients and flavours that relate to these moods to help bring the product to life.
Get brave with: CBD, Tahini, Huckleberry

Request a flavouring sample

Flavour Trend 5 ) Crossover Flavours

Spotted a winning flavour in a different sector? Give it a go in your application – often a sure thing for success.
A perfect example would be something like an Espresso Martini. A drink that has long been a staple in just about every cocktail menu.
This type of flavour would be perfect to try out in a bakery or dairy application. What’s more, it’s grown by 91.31% in social media discussions over the past year. What are you waiting for?
Get brave with: Maple and Bacon, Katsu Curry, Yuzu Koshō

Request a flavouring sample

Flavour Trend 6) A Braver Flavour

What would a flavour trend report be from I.T.S. without a focus on braver flavours? The most important thing to focus on with your product development in 2022 is bravery.
Be bold, be big, be brave. Make sure your products stand out and grab people’s attention.
Categories are very crowded and often full of similar products, which makes it difficult for customers to navigate at retail outlets.

Feeling inspired and fancy trying some new flavours? Get in touch to request samples of our flavour trends.



GET FLAVOUR SAMPLES

Indulgent Plant-Based Bakery Flavours

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I can’t believe there’s no butter: New vegan flavour solutions from I.T.S
deliver indulgence in plant-based bakery applications.

We have developed Vegan Boost – a new range of natural flavour enhancers that replicate the indulgent characteristics of traditional bakery products in dairy and egg-free alternatives. The launch, which taps into the growing consumer interest in plant-based diets, is timed to coincide with Veganuary.

How does Vegan Boost improve plant-based bakery?

Available in liquid and powder formats, Vegan Boost offers an all-in-one solution to improve the sensory quality of a range of plant-based cake and patisserie products by accentuating buttery and creamy flavours. A higher strength range, Vegan Boost Extra, is also available if more intense flavours are required.

There are several ingredients bakers can use to rebuild the structural properties of a product when dairy and egg ingredients have been removed, some of which may create off-notes. Vegan Boost masks these and delivers an authentic flavour experience to ensure those who follow a plant-based diet can enjoy the same delicious bakery products as other consumers.


Request a VEGAN BOOST sample

Making plant-based bakery easy

Carl Smith, our Head of Innovations, says: “Consumer demand for plant-based products is rising, but until now the bakery sector has been a little behind the curve. Our bakery customers know we are easy to work with and they asked us for help in enhancing the flavour of their vegan cakes and bakery ranges. We set about creating a straightforward alternative to the options currently available from the larger flavour houses. Vegan Boost offers no-nonsense flavours, and it provides an easy-to-use solution that is proven to work.
“At I.T.S we’re passionate about helping our customers stay a step ahead of their competitors. That’s why we developed our message “A Braver Flavour”, which describes both who we are and the benefits we offer. We stand with anyone who wants to do something new, something different or something braver. And we believe Vegan Boost thrusts the plant-based bakery sector into a new era of innovation.”

How Vegan Boost works its flavour magic in plant-based bakery

To assess Vegan Boost across different bakery products, we produced a cupcake and a brioche in-house and presented these to a team of panellists. The group compared the organoleptic characteristics ¬– such as ‘buttery’, ‘richness’, ‘indulgent’ and ‘creamy’ – of a vegan versus a non-vegan version of the recipes.
The vegan cupcake fell short on many of the sensory elements, but when our flavour experts added Vegan Boost to the plant-based recipe, it enhanced the buttery qualities and delivered more fatty notes to amplify the cupcake’s perceived indulgence.
To create the vegan brioche, we replaced the milk, butter and eggs with almond milk, olive oil, vegan butter and a small amount of lemon juice. The vegan brioche performed poorly, but when Vegan Boost Extra was added, the panellists said that the enhanced dairy and egg-free brioche was richer, with significantly improved creaminess and buttery characteristics.
Click here to get in touch to find out how Vegan Boost could be used in your bakery products and request a flavour sample.

Request a VEGAN BOOST sample

BRC AA Certified – A Safer Flavour

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Once again we’ve proven our dedication to the highest class in food safety by being awarded BRC AA.

Safer flavours from I.T.S.

We’ve done it again! Another year, another BRC AA  awarded. Following a successful audit in July we were officially given this year’s BRC AA certificate in early September.

Full credit goes to our Technical and Production Teams that were heavily involved with the audit and ensured all our high standards were continually met.

Why is BRCGS so important?

The BRCGS Global Food Safety Standard has set the benchmark for over 20 years. Adopted by over 20,000 sites in 130 countries, the standard is accepted by 70% of the top 10 global retailers, 60% of the top 10 quick-service restaurants, and 50% of the top 25 manufacturers.

Mike Bagshaw Owner and Founder of I.T.S. said “I’m so proud of the team and that we can continually provide our customers with the utmost confidence in our food safety and hygiene. For me, the grade was never in doubt. I know how focused the team is in keeping standards at the highest level”.

I.T.S. Commissions UHT Pilot Plant

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We have invested to install and commission a high-quality UHT pilot plant at our facility in Newbury.

We don’t like to blow our own trumpet, but we’ve made a real mark in the flavoured milk market over the last few years. If you’re a fan of milkshakes, we’re pretty confident you’ll have already tried our flavours. We’ve now built up a large range of natural flavourings that work perfectly in both pasteurised milk products and UHT treated milk products.

Quality UHT Flavourings Guaranteed 

Through the success we’ve had working with milk products we’ve invested to install and commission a high-quality UHT pilot plant at our facility in Newbury. The UHT plant will not only make sure all our flavourings have been fully UHT tested, but also offers the opportunity for customers to run trials alongside us using the machine.

This gives our customers peace of mind that the flavours they receive will survive the UHT process and be ready for use in development and production. Often flavours can lose their impact or gain metallic notes through the UHT process, so it is important to know the flavourings can survive the extreme heat treatment.

Customer Satisfaction Drives Innovation in I.T.S. Flavours

Briony Rideout, Dairy and Beverage Innovation Specialist at I.T.S. says “It’s another step towards making our customers lives easier. When they receive flavours from us they can relax, knowing the flavours don’t need any further testing or UHT trials.”

It’s this focus on customer satisfaction that is helping I.T.S. gain so much momentum. Mike Bagshaw, Owner and Founder of I.T.S explains “For us, it’s all about making our customers happy. If they are happy, we are happy. We build the business based purely on the needs of our customers and how best we can accommodate them”.

Get in touch to request some tasty UHT tested flavours or find out how to run your own trials on our pilot plant.

Are Allergens Driving You Nuts?

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Exploring how flavourings can help solve one of food and drink manufacturers biggest headaches.

Allergens are one of the biggest nightmares for food and drink manufacturers. However, it’s a bigger nightmare if you suffer from one of these allergens. You may have heard about the large companies who have been caught out with it before and it can easily lead to devastating consequences if you get it wrong.

Allergens are a bigger problem than you think

Allergens are estimated to affect 1 in 25 of the UK population. Although 20-30% of people perceive themselves to have an intolerance or an allergy. That’s a big deal. For starters you don’t want to isolate a large number of the population from your products, and also this group of people don’t want to miss out on some of the tasty flavours that allergens might have.

Now then, what are these allergens we’re talking about? You’re probably aware of most of the big ones – nuts, milk, wheat and egg. There are also things like sesame, celery and mustard that are also incredibly dangerous to people with allergies.

Allergen-free food and drink is simple to achieve

So, how can you have an allergen-free site and produce products that still taste of nuts or milk? It’s easy, the answer is flavours.

Our team of flavourists have worked hard to develop a range of allergen-free natural flavourings that can make sure no one misses out on the tasty flavours that allergens would normally bring.

Flavours are the perfect option for use in development. Certain cuisines rely heavily on some of these allergens, for example, a lot of Asian cooking relies on sesame seeds or sesame oil to give the amazing taste that their cuisine is known for. If you have a sesame allergy you have to be careful with this cuisine.

NPD teams are always given projects to create allergen-free products but asked to still deliver that recognisable taste that the allergen provides. However, they never taste quite the same – we can say that from experience.

Make your life easier with flavours instead of allergens

Not only is it a pain for development but also for manufacturing. Manufacturers need to have different lines/sites for allergen containing products and allergen-free products, all of which cost a great deal of time and money to set up and maintain.

A great way to simplify your existing manufacturing process is to use flavours, which eliminates this hurdle. No designated allergen storage, intense deep cleaning after each run or extra lines are needed. You’ll also be opening up your products to a much wider audience and keeping everyone happy – what’s not to like?

If you’ve come across any of the problems above then why not try some of our flavours. You never know, it could be the answer you’ve been waiting for all this time.

Take a look below and request a sample of our favourite natural allergen-free flavours:

• Peanut Flavouring
• Hazelnut Flavouring
• Almond Flavouring
• Pistachio Flavouring
• Walnut Flavouring
• Celery Flavouring
• Sesame Flavouring
• Milk Flavouring
• Cream Flavouring
• Butter Flavouring

Get in touch to request a sample or to find out our full range of allergen-free flavours.

Tackling Sugar In Milk And Plant-Based Drinks

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How to naturally reduce sugar in RTD milk and plant-based drinks with no impact on taste or texture.

Plant-based drinks are really taking on the mainstream. Over the last couple of years the quality of the products has increased massively – with an extensive choice now presented to consumers.

Take a look down supermarket aisles and you’ll see a whole selection of options: oat, soy, almond and coconut to name a few of the most popular. Then within each of these categories there is a further selection of eye-catching brands and flavours to try.

Traditional milk products shelf space is now being reduced as the alternative plant-based drinks grow in popularity.

What’s the issue with sugar in milk and plant-based drinks?

Many of the big brands in the plant-based sector like Oatly and Minor Figures do great work presenting no added sugar options in their core milk range. The main issue comes with the flavoured drinks and the plant-based milk options presented in coffee shops. Most of these products often have heaps of added sugar.

The issue looks to become a bigger headache with the rise of premium RTD products hitting the market. This area is spearheaded by the RTD coffee market that has grown 20% over 2020. With RTD premium drinks comes the need for powerful flavours and indulgence, all of which sugar is the go-to ingredient.

The issue isn’t just exclusive to plant-based drinks, as traditional RTD milk beverages also suffer from the same high sugar levels.

Consumers demand a healthier option

Milk and plant-based drink manufacturers can’t ignore the calls for lowering sugar content. Nearly half (46%) of consumers are concerned about the level of sugar in food and drink as an FSA survey found.

This is especially true in the plant-based sector, where a major appeal of the products is their added health benefits.

Natural flavourings can boost sweetness

The team at I.T.S. has developed a solution that will help dramatically reduce sugar in not just plant-based drinks, but also traditional milk drinks. We use natural flavourings to boost and enhance the sweetness in the applications.

Our new product, SweetLITE Body not only boosts sweetness but also enhances mouthfeel to make up for the lack of depth sugar provides to the mouthfeel of a drink.

We’ve proven to reduce sugar content by up to 50% in milk and plant-based drinks. The best part is the ingredient is 100% natural and declared as a natural flavouring on the packaging.

Get in touch to request a sample of our sugar reduction solutions.

Hard Seltzer: Should You Believe The Hype?

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Will the hard seltzer transform the alcoholic drinks market, or is it all hype and no flavour?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock over the last couple of years, you’ll be aware of the latest craze to hit the alcoholic drinks market. The hard seltzer is providing a healthier alternative to beer and ready to drink alcoholic drinks that usually come packed with sugar.

For anyone doubting the future of the hard seltzer market, forecasts show it will “far surpass” initial predictions of 281 million case sales in the US by 2023, two years early, according to IWSR Drinks Market Analysis. This was echoed by the Stone Brewing CEO, Maria Stipp, who stated “At the current rate, seltzer will pass craft in terms of category size. So, that’s meaningful to us.” This also highlights the huge trend in breweries and distillers getting involved in the hard seltzer market.

What is a hard seltzer?

Hard seltzers are incredibly simple and cheap to produce – carbonated water, with alcohol and flavourings. The product gained fame in the US with the eye-catching White Claw who were the first brand to gain real attention. Since then countless brands and drink developers have jumped on the craze to try to recreate the popular White Claw product.

You’ll be able to spot a hard seltzer a mile off as all the branding seem to follow the same design style – a white can and a splash of bright colour. Brewdog, Smirnoff, Kopparberg are some of the bigger brands to try their hand, but the market is also full of young start-up’s looking to target the growing health-conscious consumer segment.

So, does hard seltzer live up to the promise?

Given all the pretty packaging and huge hype, do these products deliver on flavour? Close, but no cigar. We think they are currently just falling short. Sure, they taste fruity and some even try adding some other ingredients to make them slightly more interesting – but for us, they always end up falling a little flat. It’s a bit like how flavoured water never really hugely took off – yeah, it tastes ok, but not something that’ll blow you away.

We love a little tipple at I.T.S. so took it upon ourselves to pretty much taste all the hard seltzers currently available in UK supermarkets. A very mixed bag of results, some simply didn’t deliver and some offered real promise, however, none blew us away.

One of the biggest issues we found was the complete lack of mouthfeel in the products, which just make them feel very plain and empty. Of course, the lack of sugar is also an issue as we are used to our fruity products being nice and sweet.

Revolutionising the flavour of the hard seltzer

We started thinking, these hard seltzers have so much promise, but aren’t quite there yet – how can we help? We knew they needed to be sweeter and have a more advanced mouthfeel, but still not increase the sugar content. Easy.

Enter our new 100% natural sweetness and mouthfeel booster, SweetLITE Body. By using SweetLITE Body you can add both the missing sweetness and mouthfeel to a hard seltzer without big changes in the ingredients listed on the can. This game-changing solution is simply labelled as a natural flavouring and inulin.

Problem solved. The drink is expected to take more than 15 per cent of the US beer and cider market by 2024, and also showing similar signs of growth in the UK.

Want to give it a go? Get in touch to request a sample of SweetLITE Body.