While consumer research yields a positive response about consumer preference for natural flavors, their behaviors when making purchases may not always reflect that. Despite this, there is a real demand for natural flavors, with MarketsAndMarkets predicting 2011’s global $3.5bn market will be $5bn by 2017. The CAGR from 2012 to 2017 is estimated to be 6.2%.
Scott Harris, Marketing Director, Sweet Goods & Dairy for Givaudan, told us recently: “Flavors that are generally recognized as occurring in nature tend to be the most highly demanded natural flavors.”
“Fanciful flavors are not as expected to be natural (Boston cream pie) however where applicable we are seeing this evolve, for example blue raspberry evolving to blueberry-raspberry and being more recognizable including color adaptations,” he added.
There is also some cross category application, with bacon whiskey and bacon ice cream emerging, while the influence of Hispanic and Indo-Asian consumers continues to grow.
As reported recently by FoodNavigator-USA, emerging natural flavor trends are around variety and provenance. In-line with this trend, Sensient recently launched six different varieties of cherry flavors for a variety of food and beverage applications.
Markus Beba, VP sales & marketing at Natural Taste Consulting (NTC), says that the demand for natural flavors is normally higher for products which are positioned towards "health" such as dairy, sports drinks, nutritional bars or targeting e.g. kids, mum's, woman, and so on.