Artificial Flavors

What are Artificial Flavors?

Artificial Flavors are flavors that have been created for food that do not exist in nature or simply an attempt to clone a flavor found in nature.

Most artificial flavors are specific and often complex mixtures of singular naturally occurring flavor compounds combined together to either imitate or enhance a natural flavor. These mixtures are formulated by flavorist to give a food product a unique flavor and to maintain flavor consistency between different product batches or after recipe changes. The list of known flavoring agents includes thousands of molecular compounds, and the flavor chemist (flavorist) can often mix these together to produce many of the common flavors. Many flavorants consists of esters, which are often described as being "sweet" or "fruity". [1]

The compounds used to produce artificial flavors are almost identical to those that occur naturally. [1]

Artificial Flavor Creation Process

To begin producing artificial flavors, flavor manufacturers must either find out the individual naturally occurring aroma chemicals and mix them appropriately to produce a desired flavor or create a novel non-toxic artificial compound that gives a specific flavor. [1]