More than ever consumers are thinking consciously and critically about their purchases. Customers and companies alike are seeking out responsibly sourced products that are supported by thorough research, while being presented with clear and concise narratives. They want answers -- what is in their food? How is it grown? What are the environmental and societal impacts of their purchases?
Enter Symrise, whose innovative and sustainable taste solutions are globally meeting the shifting needs of consumers within today’s culinary landscape without sacrificing the ultimate taste experience. Their recently launched platform, Code of Nature, unlocks and amplifies the real tastes of nature while fulfilling consumer demand for the best, natural, honest food and drink. It offers clean ingredients across culinary categories that are sustainably sourced, ethically prepared, and deliver amazing real taste.
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Savory Food Bases are Code of Nature’s newest taste solution, bringing an array of flavorings made with real food ingredients that one might easily recognize in their own kitchen pantry. Through meticulous and responsible methods, Code of Nature’s collection of over 40 savory bases is created from an extensive palette of organic vegetable and fruit purees, extracts, essential oils, and spices to provide real, fresh tastes with no hidden additives. Bases are highly customizable and versatile, ranging from simple staples such as Roasted Onion and Roasted Garlic to more complex creations like Thai Green Curry. The bases make it easy for people to incorporate variety into their everyday meals and explore new tastes, while also receiving full transparency regarding the creation process behind each product.
Code of Nature’s Savory Food Bases are supported by four pillars that underpin naturalness: Best Natural, Transparency, Technology, and Consumer Value.
BEST NATURALS
Under Code of Nature, Symrise’s savory bases are meeting consumers’ increasing demands for tasteful food featuring honest and clean labels. Responsibly developed by certified research chefs, all culinary bases are crafted from simple, natural foodstuffs that are both familiar and authentic, and can be used to enhance flavor in soups, sauces, dressings, proteins, ready meals and snacks. "The beauty of the food bases is that they provide complex, 1-drop systems while still maintaining clean labels,” shared Symrise Chef Noah Michaels. “In other words, they bring the full flavor profile to a product, without needing any artificial colors or preservatives.”
REGULATORY GUIDANCE
At Symrise, the importance of transparency is firmly upheld and prioritized. By partnering with organic farmers globally and maintaining a staff of 60 Agronomists, the company utilizes its strategic sourcing capabilities to secure raw, organic, ethically raised materials of the highest quality. “The thing to remember is that these [savory bases] are real food,” said Craig Zurlini, Category Manager, Savory. “They are thoughtfully created to fulfill the consumer’s desire for the cleanest possible label, a label that reflects recognizable ingredients such as those found in the consumer’s own kitchen pantry.”
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Furthermore, Symrise’s purchase of ingredient company, Diana in 2014 provided a first mover advantage in the natural space by strengthening access to high-quality starting materials via backwards integration and traceability within its supply chain.
APPLIED SCIENCE
Every savory base is meticulously designed and processed by Symrise’s team of highly trained chefs that oversee the production scale-up. “The production mirrors processes and techniques regularly used in home kitchens, providing authentic flavors that consumers can fully trust,” stated Zurlini. To create the bases, Individually Quick Frozen (IQF) fruits and vegetables are blended with spices and essential oils, which are then gently heated for ten minutes in a jacketed kettle to an internal temperature of 90° C. The mixture is cooled for up to two hours, until reaching a temperature of below 5° C, and then packed and shipped refrigerated in sterilized pails.
By providing an explicit, turn-key solution rather than individually procuring, storing and handling IQF materials and dealing with associated costs and waste, Code of Nature customers never have to question the validity of a product’s safe and sustainable production.
CONSUMER DRIVEN
Symrise prides itself on creating flavor profiles such as Savory Food Bases that provide consumers with variety and high-quality taste through socially and environmentally responsible methods they can trust. Additionally, the versatile nature of the bases allows for consumers to drum up new seasonal creations of their own. “Every base aligns perfectly with our Craft initiative in the sense that they are custom creations, small batch, artisanal, handcrafted, high quality and made with BFY ingredients,” Zurlini commented.
MENU CONCEPTS
For the official launch of Code of Nature, Symrise’s skilled chefs created meal prototypes utilizing Savory Food Bases. “These menu items display the simple label and complex taste of our food bases,” said Chef Michaels. “We’re able to recapture the complexity of a chef-prepared item into something that’s manufactured.” To date, Symrise has created over 40 unique and flavorful bases, along with menu items including Pumpkin Swirl Cookies, Thai Issan Sausage, and the popular Clothbound Pimento Cheese and Crackers.
Beyond Savory Food Bases, Code of Nature platforms include: Naturally Citrus, Discover Chicken, Simply Vanilla, Botanical Essentials, That’s Onion, Fruity Essentials and Sweet Food Bases. Stay tuned to the In-Sight blog for briefs on the other platforms!
