- Text
The Flavorists: Tweaking tastes and creating cravings
Kessler believes flavorists are accomplices - the hired guns of the food industry.
Kessler: They make food super palatable.
Safer: But what-- what's wrong with that? Don't we want the richness of good taste?
Kessler: Of course. Food has to be pleasurable. It has to be desirable. But look around, Morley. Look around this country and what do you see? Ask the rest of the world how they view Americans and they will say, 'We don't want to look like them.'
Safer: Are you saying that the food industry and the flavoring industry together, are trying to make, and succeeding in making us, addicted?
Kessler: Did the industry do this deliberately? No. It learned what stimulates. It learned what people want.
Bob Pelligrino: There's no question we're trying to create an irresistibility and a memorability. I think, though, that there's then a leap to get to that leads to over consumption
Bob Pelligrino is Givaudan's flavor czar, as vice president of global strategy and business development.
Safer: Your critics say that you provide the means to seduce people into eating too much salt, too much fat, too much sugar and are responsible, partly, for the obesity in this country.
Pellegrino: Our business is to make taste experiences pleasurable ones. So, I don't think that the flavors create an overeating problem. I think that's a different issue.
Safer: But is it a different issue? Because surely what your clients want-- the food industry wants, is to provide the kind of flavor, that will make people want more.
Pellegrino: I don't think it's creating a desire for moreness (sic), as well as it's a desire for memorability so that people will repeat the purchases of the product and enjoy them.
But given the obesity epidemic, the food industry is beginning to respond to pressure for "lessness," if there is such a word, of fat, salt and sugar. And that's opening up a whole new business opportunity and another challenge for these alchemists of flavor.
Hassel: Everyone, everyone, everyone is working on health and wellness. How can you get a consumable, acceptable product that's better for you? And the challenge now is, how do you make 'em taste good?
Hassel: So, when you lower the salt, what can we put in that will make it taste like it did without salt? When you lower sugar, how can you make it taste sweeter without adding calories? So it's a whole new world, that didn't even exist ten years ago. But the consumers are interesting. As much as they want to be healthy, right, if it's not as sweet then I don't want it.
Safer: People are still going for the tried and true, heavy on sugar, heavy on salt, heavy on fat?
Hassel: Yeah, so I guess the real question is-- obesity going down? And I guess the answer would be no.
- « Previous Page
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- Bill Gates 2.0
- Bill Gates on Steve Jobs: We grew up together
- Preview: Michael Jackson
- Preview: A Long and Dangerous Journey
- The Rescue of Jessica Buchanan
- Preview: A Face in the Crowd
- The Rescue of Jessica Buchanan, Succeeding As Civilians, Bill Gates 2.0
- Show Schedule
- Angelina Jolie: I would love to live a long life
- Bill Gates 2.0
- "Big Brother" is big business?
- Hitler's Secret Archive
- The Rescue of Jessica Buchanan
- A look in Michael Jackson's closet
- How Bill Gates' school launched his life's work
- Succeeding As Civilians









