Founder and CEO of Omega Ingredients, biochemist Steve Pearce, will be featured on a special ITV "Tonight" programme focusing on flavour and taste, hosted by Jonathan Maitland at 7.20pm on 13th of August.
The programme identifies the value and importance of the British flavour industry. At the Omega Ingredients laboratory in Suffolk Steve and Jonathan created a raspberry flavour using only natural ingredients and a raspberry puree, made from fresh blended raspberries.
Two ice-cream syrups were made, one with 0.10% natural flavour and the other with 10% raspberries. Each of these were then taken to a local school, Hardwick Middle School Sports Academy, and tasted on ice cream to determine if there was a preference.
"For a flavouring to be described as natural, it must be 100% derived from natural sources. If you look at the ingredients list from which we have made the raspberry flavour every ingredient is extracted from natural materials and combined to create the flavour." said Steve Pearce, founder and CEO of Omega Ingredients.
Why do we need flavourings?
"For many reasons: take the example of the natural raspberry flavour we are making, if we were to use real raspberries to flavour every available raspberry-flavour product in the UK, then we would need to grow raspberries on every available inch of ground across the UK, which clearly is not practical."
"Natural flavourings also support the health food industry. Diet food and beverages need to taste good, otherwise it doesn't matter what the nutritional value is, if it doesn't taste good, no one will eat it. For example we make a chocolate flavouring which is used in numerous diet and health products to make them taste good."
"It would be wonderful if everyone in Britain had access to grow their own food but for most this unfortunately isn't a viable option and the next best thing for many products is the use of natural ingredients and flavours made at Omega Ingredients." commented Steve Pearce.
Omega Ingredients founder and CEO Steve Pearce is a Biochemist with 30 years of experience who is trusted by global sector leaders to inform them on the scientific possibilities and probabilities, trends and predictions in flavours, fragrances and ingredients innovation. He recently became one of the first people to be awarded the Certified Food Scientist (CFS) credential through the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) at this year's Annual Meeting & Food Expo in Chicago, in July.
Pearce is also an author of many papers and frequent presenter at international conferences and an adviser to a diverse range of commercial clients, specialising in creating unique ingredients, fragrances and flavours for food & drink manufacturers, plus cosmetics & household consumer products producers.
