Flavor Application in Food Products Kelsey Coupe

College Park Scholars – Science & Global Change Program Food Science

kcoupe@terpmail.umd.edu College Park Scholars Academic Showcase, May 5, 2016

Introduction

Over the summer, I had the opportunity to intern at Robertet Flavors in the Flavor Applications Lab. Robertet creates flavors from raw materials, and it was under my responsibility to aid in utilizing those flavors in different food products for companies and customers.

As an intern, I helped gather flavors for varying projects, screen multiple flavors in the products, find suitable flavor levels, make base products, and other tasks to assist the Flavor Specialists. While the Flavor Specialists had the overall responsibility of taking on projects, I was able to help out on almost all of the products that were presented during my time there.

Acknowledgments:

I would like to thank John Simons, Diana Furey, and Jimmy Ding for giving me the opportunity to intern at Robertet and get a peek at the Food Science world. This internship was a very valuable experience that I both enjoyed and learned from, and these people were constantly teaching me and mentoring me. I would also like to thank Dr. Thomas Holtz and Dr. John Merck for the last 4 semesters in the Science and Global Change program.

What I learned:

Before interning at Robertet, I was not aware of the responsibilities of flavoring companies in the creation of products. I learned that flavor companies such as Robertet do a lot of the hard work in presenting food products that are desirable, FDA approved, and cost efficient for companies to sell. When a food product lists “other natural flavors” in their list of ingredients, those are the flavors added by the flavor company.

I worked closely with many projects for companies that we see everyday, such as Starbucks, Coca-cola, Pepsi, Anhouser Busch, and more. It was very eye opening to see how much work goes into configuring the perfect product that gets put on the shelves. Site Information:

Robertet Flavors Flavor Applications Lab 10 Colonial Drive, Piscataway, NJ

Lab Supervisor: Diana Furey

The Flavor Applications Lab focuses on providing companies/vendors with desired beverage, dairy, sweet, pharmacy, and culinary products using flavors created from raw materials.

Issues Confronting Work:

One of the major issues confronting the site was being the youngest and newest worker. Most of the workers had been there for years and were all college graduates. Luckily, the environment was very accepting and everyone was willing to help me adapt to the lab.

Another personal issue was the early start time. Because products needed to be shipped out by 4:00 pm (the FedEx pick up time), I had to be in the lab by 7:30 am everyday to ensure that the projects were completed. It was a large adjustment waking up that early, but definitely worth it.

Activities:

As an intern in the Applications Lab, I would mainly deal with projects concerning customer desires for specific or non-specific products. Various food-product companies would give a general idea of the type of product they wanted, and it was my job to aid in testing out different flavors and different flavor levels to send back as options. Using the database of flavors, I would put together a list of potential flavor options, see the flavor levels they were used at in past projects, and use this to find what the company was looking for.

In certain cases, it was my job to help create recipes for the base products in which we introduced different flavors. Most of the time, I dealt with flat drinks (non-carbonated) or syrups, but I also aided in making gummies, hard candies, and slushy products. In the case of the slushy drink, I had to try out different binding agents to see which one worked best texturally and fiscally. Similarly for the gummies, I had to try different ratios of gelatin to find the best consistancy.

A final product being shipped out to the customer would have to have the right flavor, flavor level, product color, preservative, and formula. Before being shipped, I aided in putting together the prototypes, documenting the prototypes, and pasteurizing the products.

Personal Impact:

I worked very closely on specific projects, spending a lot of time researching past products of the company, creating prototype ideas, screening flavors, and perfecting flavor levels.

Also, I helped in perfecting the recipe of final products, making sure that the requirements were met when closing out the projects.

Future Work:

Interning at the flavoring lab reaffirmed my decision to go into the field of Food Science, and it motivated me to continue my studies in the major. I will be returning to the same lab this summer, hopefully expanding my lab experiences and broadening my connections.

Space to place QR

Code