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Using botanicals to boost flavour in functional foods

Functional ingredients are often synonymous with bitter and unpleasant flavours, but some suppliers are using botanicals to help bridge the gap between good taste and good health.

Botanical ingredients already have attracted manufacturers’ attention for their flavour potential, but more suppliers now are looking to provide flavourful botanicals that also have functional benefits. Naturex (now part of Givaudan), for example, supplies botanical infusions, including from chamomile and lavender for use in the growing relaxation drinks segment. It recently extended its range of floral extracts to include flavourings from rose, hibiscus and Brazil cress, while also playing up their associations with health.

Mintel has noted a growing trend for floral extracts, and it is their association with health that is often most important, rather than necessarily a specific functional property. Instead, consumers tend to perceive products with natural, recognisable ingredients as generally healthy. Such extracts are already popular in drinks, but the market researcher says they are starting to enter other categories, including ice cream, yoghurt and sweets.

Extracts from roots like ginger and turmeric also have seen rising demand over the past few years. Sensient Technologies, for example, says one of its most popular extracts is a combination of gingerols and shoagols from ginger root, with the former providing ginger flavour and the latter being responsible for spicy heat.

In their quest for foods and drinks that boost health and wellness, consumers increasingly are interested in overtly earthy or plant-like flavours that have strong ‘good for you’ connotations. Depending on the finished product, a slightly bitter taste may even be desirable, in the case of green smoothies or juices, for instance, which often are taken specifically as a health tonic. Green tea, kale, yerba mate and matcha all fit well with a growing trend for antioxidant-rich natural ingredients as consumers look for healthy alternatives to sugary drinks.

Although not strictly plants, mushrooms like chaga, lion’s mane and reishi have come to the fore alongside the trend toward functional botanical ingredients, with proponents saying tonics made from such fungi will boost energy, provide relaxation, or even promote beauty, immunity and gut health. Companies like Scelta Mushrooms have found that mushroom extracts can be used to boost flavour too, in both savoury and sweet foods. Its ingredients can be used in low salt products to increase umami, or alongside chocolate flavours for a fuller, richer taste.

As consumers increasingly accept the idea of food and drink as medicine, and seek less sugar and more natural, exotic flavours, botanical ingredients enjoy a comfortable position at the crossroads of all these trends. Many extracts could work well as a way to lift a product’s natural credentials and, as consumer tastes broaden to embrace more bitter and sour flavour profiles, botanicals that answer demand for the most sought-after functional benefits look set for further growth.