Overview
Botanicals are used to impart pleasant flavor to products where consumers seek more authentic and unconventional taste experiences. Nevertheless, issues associated with botanical flavors in terms of stability, color, and flavor require immediate attention.
Business Objective
The client wanted to have an in-depth understanding of the opportunity areas in the domain of innovative botanical flavor in beverages:
- The main objective of the engagement was to understand the use of botanical flavors in beverages
- Extracting the flavor/essence from botanicals and delivering it to beverages
- Actual botanicals added in the beverages directly (infused flavor)
Approach
The implementation approach began with the analysis of various botanical ingredients from the R&D and commercialized sectors. This helped us understand the context and prioritize the main gaps and challenges, followed by the identification of key botanicals for marketing and potential partners for collaboration.
Client Success Details
- Helped the client by providing various botanical ingredients for different beverage segments like energy drinks, sports drinks, protein drinks, sparkling water, bottled water, iced tea, etc.
- Assisted the client in understanding the various challenges related to stability, color, flavor, consumer acceptance, etc., and how existing and upcoming solutions can address these.
- The client followed recommendations to identify the current scenario, strategic focus & action plan, and competitive scenario in the botanical sector. Various key players are working on producing beverages with no added sugar, preservatives, stabilizers, or colors with additional features such as sustainability, clean label, 100% natural, etc.
- Our recommendations helped the client recognize the beverage segment where benchmarked key botanical ingredients can be utilized, followed by potential partners with right-fit technology who can enable the integration of the optimum solution.