PRECISION TASTE IS STRONGEST WEAPON ON BEVERAGE BATTLEGROUND
Source: LAKEVILLE-MIDDLEBORO, Mass
Date: 9/3/99
URL: http://www.oceanspray.com
Description: Taste has always been a powerful weapon for juice companies competing for a place in the fruit-based beverages market. But these days, battles in the juice war are being fought with greater precision. Precision taste, that is.
Contact: Chris Phillips   (Manager, Corporate Communication & Public Affairs )
Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc.

One Ocean Spray Drive
Lakeville-Middleboro ,MA    02349
phone:(508) 946-7318
fax:(508) 947-9791
Taste has always been a powerful weapon for juice companies competing for a place in the fruit-based beverages market. But these days, battles in the juice war are being fought with greater precision. Precision taste, that is.

"Taste is what drives consumers to keep buying a product," says Catharine Powers, M.S., R.D., a national expert on taste. Powers teaches "The Physiology of Taste" at the Culinary Institute of America. Citing a recent Food Marketing Institute survey, Powers added that taste is one of the top determining factors in food preferences. "Today's consumers are looking for a more 'adult' sophisticated and complex taste."

Cranberries, like lemons, are naturally very tart so the fruit juice must be diluted and sweetened, providing consumers an interesting more bitter than sweet taste, says Powers.

Developing a new product involves many taste tests and consumer focus groups to determine just the right combination to entice consumers' taste buds. Ocean Spray's distinctive taste along with the health benefits of the cranberries keeps consumers coming back, says Jay Dravenstadt, Senior Principal Scientist for Ocean Spray.

"With precision taste, we've gone beyond the single dimension of taste and are calibrating our products to appeal to all the senses. Dravenstadt says. "When we add Georgia peach to cranberry juice, we want a flavor so real consumers smell fresh peaches and even imagine the fuzz."

The process begins with a single idea developed by the R&D team. Then a "Sensory Evaluation" group tests different formulations to verify or refute Ocean Spray's taste assessment. Early on, Ocean Spray goes directly to the consumer as part of the research process with in-home testing. With this method, researchers gain a better understanding of the initial impressions and effect a product has on the consumer. This is especially true with aroma.

"Ninety percent of what we taste is directly related to aroma," said Mark Vasi, Ocean Spray flavorist. "That's why you can't taste anything when you have a cold." A member of the Society of Flavor Chemists, Vasi is one of only about 100 people in the country who work exclusively on
product taste.

As he works with the product development team, Vasi's goal is to give every Ocean Spray product the distinctive taste the company is known for. A high-quality, flavorful juice product has great potential but often lacks distinctive taste. So to achieve the ultimate taste goal, Dravenstadt, Vasi and the team have honed three components of the R&D process to ensure precision taste by bringing flavors and aromas together.

Innovation in Action. Thanks to proprietary technology, Ocean Spray's taste experts can identify and recreate the true essence of a flavor by enhancing the aroma of the product. "When you bring the drink to your mouth, you get a fresh aromatic impact that makes you want to drink it again," said Vasi. "Adding different flavors with distinguishing scents enhances the aromatics of the product so the consumer gets the same taste as freshly pressed juice."

Picking the Best. Securing the best fruit has a significant impact on flavors because the fruit can vary widely from source to source. Working with growers and suppliers, Ocean Spray devises tight fruit specifications that become part of the proprietary formula. These specifications ensure Ocean Spray gets the best fruits, picked at the height of ripeness for superior flavor.

"We're insist upon quality and consistency in fresh, true-to-the-fruit taste. We don't settle for average, run-of-the-mill ingredients," said Dravenstadt.

Consumer Palate. Ocean Spray goes to great lengths to monitor increasingly sophisticated consumer taste buds. The company makes extensive use of taste panels not only to identify what they think tastes good, but also to get a glimpse of what's next.
Developing the next generation of Ocean Spray beverage flavors may take as little as two to four months or as long as a year. "It's always up to the consumers who test the product to tell us when we're finished," says Dravenstadt. "Flavors can be complicated and taste preferences are highly subjective, but consumers know when we've hit the precision taste mark like only Ocean Spray can."

Even though the development team smiles with pride when they see new flavors hit the shelves, they're always focused on linking precision taste with the next power flavor.

"We have to keep up with fruit popularity trends and agricultural advances which lead to improved fruit varieties, from cranberries to kiwi, that are introduced each year. We need to be able to predict what the next fruit flavor to intrigue consumers' palates is likely to be," Dravenstadt said.

As Ocean Spray perfects the precision taste technology, the company continues to stock the pipeline full of new cranberry juices and juice blends, creating a new wave of cranberry enthusiasm.

"Consumers want the health benefits cranberry juice offers, but they also want extraordinary, distinctive and precise taste. Ocean Spray delivers on all those fronts," he added. "We created this category, we grew it and we're still the leader, but we have to compete like never before. Precision taste is a weapon we plan to use to stay on top."

Ocean Spray's commitment to precision taste was recognized recently when the company received an American Taste Award from the American Tasting Institute in San Francisco. This award went to Ocean Spray's line of 100 percent juices, which contain cranberry juice blended with specific varieties of other fruits. Besides Ocean SprayƇ Premium 100% Cranberry and Key Lime, Cranberry and Georgia Peach and Cranberry and Granny Smith Apple, the company recently added three new flavors: Cranberry and Concord Grape, Cranberry and Pacific Raspberry and Cranberry.

Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc. is an agricultural cooperative owned by 920 cranberry
and citrus growers throughout the United States and Canada. With annual sales of nearly $1.5 billion, Ocean Spray holds a long-standing position as the nation's leading producer of canned and bottled juice drinks.

 

 


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