Flavor Compounds 101: What They Are and How to Use Them -

Flavor Compounds 101: What They Are and How to Use Them

If you’re not already incorporating flavor compounds into your dessert and beverage creations, you’re overlooking a powerful ingredient that can elevate your menu, streamline your processes, and deliver consistent, high-quality results every time. Flavor compounds are concentrated blends of natural ingredients designed to provide specific, consistent flavor profiles in food and beverage. Flavor compounds typically contain a combination of natural flavorings (extracted from real fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices or other natural sources), fruit purees, natural colorants like beet juice, and other flavor-enhancing elements that capture the essence of a particular taste, such as vanilla, chocolate, or natural fruit flavors.

Unlike extracts and purees, flavor compounds are formulated to be more authentic and versatile, making them ideal for a wide range of culinary applications. From pastry and beverage to confection and frozen dessert, nearly any culinary creation that requires flavor and color can benefit from the use of flavor compounds. Their concentrated nature means that only a small amount is needed to achieve the desired flavor, offering chefs, brewmasters, and food manufacturers a highly efficient and cost-effective solution.

What makes flavor compounds so invaluable is their ability to consistently deliver vibrant flavor and rich color in every batch, no matter the application. With the added benefit of a shelf life of up to two years, these compounds not only enhance the taste and presentation of your menu items but also offer practical advantages like reduced prep time and lower resource consumption compared to traditional purees.

Whether you’re a brewmaster, mixologist, pastry chef, or an artisan of frozen dessert, flavor compounds provide a premium, versatile solution that helps you push the boundaries of flavor in your craft. And trust us—sticking around to the end of this blog will be worth it. We’ve got a little surprise waiting for you!

What Are Flavor Compounds?

Flavor compounds are concentrated flavor solutions crafted from natural ingredients to deliver an authentic, true-to-profile taste experience. Depending on the specific flavor, these compounds are available in either liquid or paste-like forms. They are composed of a blend of fruit juices, purees, natural flavors, natural sugars, and natural coloring agents, resulting in a clean-label product that is free from preservatives and artificial chemicals.

The high concentration of these compounds means that only a small amount is needed to infuse robust flavor, making them a more economical and efficient alternative to traditional purees or extracts. Their versatility shines through in their ability to elevate the flavor profile of a wide range of applications, from beverages and frozen desserts to baked goods and beyond.

Benefits Compared to Purees and Extracts

Consistent, True Flavor

Flavor compounds deliver an exceptional taste that perfectly matches the intended flavor profile. Unlike extracts, which can occasionally leave a medicinal or chemical aftertaste, flavor compounds use all-natural ingredients, ensuring a clean and authentic flavor. They also offer consistent, reliable taste for up to two years. While fruit purees can be inconsistent due to variations in crop quality, flavor compounds remain stable and allow you to access your desired flavors year-round, even when certain fruits are out of season.

Consistent, True Flavor

Clean Label

Crafted from all-natural ingredients, flavor compounds boast a level of freshness comparable to pure fruit, satisfying even the most discerning traditionalists. Flavor compounds are a concentrated form of a puree composed of fruit, juice, natural flavoring, natural sugars, and natural coloring. Itaberco’s American-based manufacturing plant is not only SQF certified, ensuring the highest standards of quality and safety, but all of our products are also kosher-certified, meeting rigorous dietary requirements without compromising on quality or flavor.

Cost Effective

The high concentration and intensity of flavor compounds mean that only small amounts are needed to make a significant impact on your recipes. A single jar provides numerous uses, offering exceptional cost efficiency. Plus, unlike purees, there is no waste—you won't have to worry about spoilage or using the entire jar within a limited timeframe. This allows you to eliminate the costly acquisition of fresh fruit, avoid time-intensive preparation processes, and reduce the risk of recipe errors.

Cost Effective

How to Use Flavor Compounds

Flavor compounds are incredibly easy to incorporate into your processes, whether you’re working with a dry or liquid mixture. Plus, with a selection of over 65 delicious flavors ranging from apple cider to ube, you have a wide array of options at your fingertips.

Three Key Techniques for Flavor Enhancement

Depending on your application, there are several ways to incorporate flavor compounds. They can either replace other flavoring methods entirely or complement them by adding an extra layer of flavor consistency.

Infusion: Add flavor compounds when you’re steeping liquids with aromatics or zests.
Addition: This is the most popular method when using flavor compounds, as you can directly add flavor compounds straight to recipe mixtures for a concentrated effect.
Inclusion: While you incorporate ingredients like fruits, nuts, and chocolates into your recipe to add texture and depth, you can also supplement with a flavor compound.

Applications in Frozen Desserts

Flavor compounds are exceptional for frozen desserts such as ice cream, custard, gelato, sorbetto, and soft serve. These cold applications naturally amplify flavors, allowing you to achieve a rich taste with just 3-5% of the recipe’s total weight. Because all flavor compounds are of equal or similar strength, they can be easily interchanged to suit different flavor profiles. For more intense flavor in special cases, such as a 10% butterfat ice cream, the usage can be increased to up to 8%.

Check out our guide for gelato and sorbetto recipe ideas.

Applications in Pastries and Baking

There are endless opportunities to incorporate flavor compounds in pastry and baking applications, including mousses, cakes, donuts, glazes, and more. Heated applications typically require more intense flavor to shine through, so flavor compounds are usually used at about 3-8% of the recipe, based on application and personal preference. Here are some recipe ideas as an example!

Applications in Beverages

Flavor compounds are perfect for elevating a wide range of beverages. For areas like brewing, distillery, and non-alcoholic/alcoholic seltzers, flavor compounds can easily be added towards the end of the brewing or distilling process. Or, for a more live mixology experience, flavor compounds can be added directly into cocktails or other beverages right in the glass! Imagine how easy it is to have one foundational base beverage from which you can create hundreds of flavor options.

Flavor Compound Customization

Partnering with Itaberco gives you access to valuable resources, including our beverage and pastry specialists, who can help brainstorm menu item ideas and how to best incorporate flavor compounds. Our R&D team is accessible to all of our clients if you want to offer a flavor that isn’t already available. With a low minimum custom order, unique brand flavors are within reach!

Here are the steps involved in creating a custom order:

Contact our team.
Meet with a specialist.
Get a sample in 2-3 weeks.
Taste it! Place an order that meets MOQ requirements.
Receive your order in 4-6 weeks.

There are many ways to customize with Itaberco. We can help you:

Make something dairy-free, vegan, or natural.
Change a flavor compound color to a more or less intense color.
Adjust flavors for a specific profile, like adjusting a carabao mango into an alfonso mango.
Create a completely new flavor that’s unique to your concept!

Taste a Flavor Compound Sample to Believe It!

We’ve laid out how beneficial flavor compounds are in a variety of applications whether you’re offering frozen desserts, pastries and baked goods, or beverages. Flavor compounds are an easy, efficient, cost-effective way to add consistent flavor. All-natural ingredients fulfill traditionalist standards and provide clean-label menu items to your customers.

Whether you’re new to flavor compounds or are switching from a competing brand, we want you to have full confidence in Itaberco’s flavor compounds before you add them to your recipes. We’d love for you to try a flavor so you experience the great taste first-hand! Request a free sample today.